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Real Redemption Demands Real Holiness!
The following is from Spurgeon's sermon,
"BOUGHT WITH A PRICE"
Christ has bought us ENTIRELY from head to foot-
every power, every passion, and every faculty,
all our time, all our goods, all that we call our
own, all that makes up ourselves in the largest
sense of that term- WE ARE ALTOGETHER GOD'S.
Ah! it is very easy for people to SAY this, but how very
difficult it is to feel it true and to act as such!
I have no doubt there are many persons here who profess
to be willing to give God ALL they have, who would not
actually give him five dollars.
We can sing — "Here, Lord, I give myself away" and yet
if it comes to yielding only a part of ourselves, if it
requires self-denial, or self-sacrifice, straightway
there is a drawing back.
Now, was the cross a FICTION?
Was the death of Christ a FABLE?
Were you only FANCIFULLY "bought with a price,"
and not in deed and in truth?
If redemption be a fable, then return a 'fabled
consecration'; if your purchase be a fiction, then
lead the fictitious lives that some of you do lead
with regard to consecration to Christ.
If it be only an IDEA, a pretty something that we read
of in books, then let our belonging unto God be a mere
idea and a piece of sentiment.
But A REAL REDEMPTION DEMANDS REAL HOLINESS.
A true price, most certainly paid, demands from us a
practical surrendering of ourselves to the service of God.
From this day forth even for ever, "you are not your own,"
you are the Lord's.
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