Whose are you?

On his way to Rome in a ship doomed to destruction Paul spoke to the crew and passengers these words, "For this very night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood before me."

His words spoke to me and I read them again and again, "the God to whom I belong and whom I serve...."  This is a profound insight that each of us needs.  It answers the question's, Whose are you?  Who rules you? 

Actions spring from an understanding of who is in charge.  If I'm my own boss I can do as I please.  As many in the pro-choice movement declare, "it's my body, I can do as I choose."  And as one heavily tattooed man declared, "it's my house, I can decorate it as I please."

But....if I am not my own, if I belong to someone else then I have an obligation to respond to his instructions, his rule.  That is the defining question of eternity-  Whose are you?

In 1 Corinthians 6 Paul wrote these words to his readers, "You have been bought with a price, you are not your own, therefore glorify God in your body." 1 Cor. 6:19-20  

With these profound words Paul gives direction to every Christian, every Christ follower that we have a sovereign and he is Lord of our lives, our decisions, our actions.  That truth is the one thing that separates a Christian from the world around them. We have a master who rules us, we are not the masters of our lives.

Years ago William Ernest Henley wrote these words, they describe the soul of the man without God, but they also describe the soul doomed to crash on the rocks.  Here are his insightful words,

Out of the night that covers me, 

      Black as the pit from pole to pole, 

I thank whatever gods may be 

      For my unconquerable soul. 

In the fell clutch of circumstance 

      I have not winced nor cried aloud. 

Under the bludgeonings of chance 

      My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears 

      Looms but the Horror of the shade, 

And yet the menace of the years 

      Finds and shall find me unafraid. 

It matters not how strait the gate, 

      How charged with punishments the scroll, 

I am the master of my fate, 

      I am the captain of my soul. 

Whose are you?  Who's the master of your soul? That answer determines much about your life and end of your journey.