2B24.    1 Samuel 3:3b-10, 19.  The Lord called on Samuel during the night but Samuel only heard a voice and so thought it was his master Eli, the prophet, who was calling to him.  Eli told Samuel that it was the Lord who was calling out to him and so he should respond, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”  The listening with which Samuel was responding was not only that he was attentive to hearing the Lord’s words but, much more importantly, he was ready to do whatever the Lord wanted of him.  Samuel had a sense of belonging to the Lord wholly and completely.

John 1:35-42.   Two of John the Baptist’s disciples heard him refer to Jesus as the Lamb of God and so they followed Jesus. They sought to stay with Jesus so to become his disciples, his followers, since John recognized him as the Messiah.  One of the disciples, Andrew, went to his brother Simon (Peter) to share with him that he had a stupendous treasure, the Messiah.  Jesus was not only just a treasure that one comes to possess but, even more importantly, that we give ourselves over to so that he may possess us.

1 Corinthians 6:13c-15a, 17-20.  Paul wrote, “Whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one Spirit with him.”  Paul, continuing on, wrote, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?”  Biology recognizes us as one the animals of this earth.  That means that we have a physical, bodily life as do all the other animals of the earth.  Even so we humans, apart from the animals of the earth, also have a spiritual life.  Some choose to live only their animal life, completely rejecting their spiritual side.  Others veer from one side to the other; sometimes having the one be dominate, at other times having the other be dominant.  If we are truly and wholly Christian, we belong truly and wholly to the life that the Holy Spirit gives us.  Our bodily life is just something we live while we are alive on earth to keep our bodies going.  Our daily challenge is to put ourselves into the hands of God by the grace of God so that he may be our life force by which we live wholly and completely, making our spiritual life dominate at all times.