Are We Really Our Own?

A godly woman from church, gave me this book entitled A Gospel Primer for Christians...It gives you 31 reasons to preach the gospel to yourself every day...She encouraged me to take my time reading it, staying on 1 point until I get through it. I've been on Point #1 since last week because I've been studying the Bible passages in that point...Point #1 is The New Testament Model (of repreaching the gospel) and here is a brief statement from that point, "In most of Paul's letters to churches, sizeable portions of them are given over to rehearsing gospel truths..." Then, it gives 3 passages that share the gospel, Ephesians 1-3, Colossians 1-2, and Romans 1-11. These are the passages that spell out the gospel of Jesus Christ. I read through Colossians 1-2 last week, so, I wanted to take the time to read through Ephesians 1-3 today, but only got through to 1:14. Do you know how much are in those 1st 14 verses? Just by reading these verses here is what was revealed to me:
1. For those who know Christ, did you know that He chose us from the beginning of time to be in Christ? v.4

2. Do you know why He chose us to be in Christ? He chose us to be in Christ to be HOLY and BLAMELESS because THIS is what brings praise to Him!!! v.4 and 6...In lay men's terms, He chose us to bring Him glory...

3. Do you know how God has poured out His grace on us? He has given us forgiveness of our sins through Jesus Christ, but we receive that by His grace through the wisdom and understanding of the gospel. Our minds are renewed to know and understand the gospel to receive it. That is how His grace is poured out on us, to know and understand that Jesus died for our sins and that through His blood we are forgiven. v.8

4. Do you know that Paul again repeats why we were chosen to be in Christ? We were chosen to be in Christ to bring praise to HIS GLORY!!! As I read v.12, where Paul repeats that we are chosen to be in Christ to bring praise to HIM, it made me think of Romans and how Paul says in Romans that we are no longer slaves to sin but slaves to righteousness...And this is when I realized that we are really not our own...We were freed from the power of sin to become slaves to righteousness...We are God's...

This is where I stopped my studies because I wanted to think about what it means to be God's...What does that mean when it comes to how we ought to live our lives...I was just thinking that if I thought about being God's and not my own, would that change the perspective in how I see things and make decisions? For example, in my post "Crazy is Only a Matter of Perspective", I made the conclusion that we ought to pursue a life pleasing to God. Does knowing the reason behind that make a difference? So if I say, we ought to pursue a life pleasing to God because we are God's...Does that make me think even more intentionally about how I respond because I am no longer my own, but God's? So that is where I will leave my thoughts for today...