Who are the Lord's people, and where may they be found? The answer is easy--every one and everywhere. "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein." (Psalm 24:1)
If you are a dweller in this world you belong to the Lord. It is not a question of whether you have ever given yourself to Him or not; for all men are His by purchase. He bought us when we had not power to give ourselves, and ransomed us with His life. Now the question is, "Will you let Him do what He will with His own?"
All belong to the Lord; but not all will let Him have His own. That is all the difference there is between men. The Lord paid no more for one than He did for another. He has no favorites.
But while the favor is equally extended to all, few in every generation have been willing to own the fact that the earth is the Lord's and that all who are in it belong to Him. The acknowledgment must be a personal one, and this text must for ever put away that miserable wail of the hymn:
'Tis a point I long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought;
Do I love the Lord, or no?
Am I His, or am I not?
--John Newton, Hymn: In Doubt and Fear.
"Know you not that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, his you are to whom you obey?" (Romans 6:6)
He who feels a doubt if he is the Lord's may set his mind at rest on that point; he is the Lord's but has not acknowledged God's claim on him.
And he who does not know that he loves the Lord, may be very sure that he does not, because he does not know Him. Whoever knows the Lord, loves Him. "He that loves not knows not God; for God is love." (1 John 4:8)--Present Truth, December 5, 1895--Psalm 24:1.