Inside our theme of love this month, this week we have been talking about intimacy and how important it is to experience this dynamic with God, in relationships, and inside a community. Today, we will look at a different type of intimacy, in fact, the deepest intimacy possible.
In Paul’s teaching to the church at Corinth, he tied an Old Testament reality to the new reality Jesus provided. The temple was once a physical structure where only designated priests could enter. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, along with the presence of the Holy Spirit, allows His to be brought into our own hearts through faith in Christ.
Listen to 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 …
Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:18-20 NLT)
Do you see it? As followers of Christ, we literally become His temple. This brings an incredible new type of intimacy and closeness … God with us and God in us. We, of course, do not become God, but He now lives inside our lives.
Let’s read this passage again in The Message Bible.
Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.
As I have asked you a number of times on other days in Sound Mind Set, was there any line or phrase that stood you to you? What was it? … Why do you think it stood out to you? What might God be saying by highlighting that for you?
For the believer, the crucial focus here is that our bodies no longer belong to us. The temple of God is no longer a building or a place only priests can visit. Christ’s death and resurrection, along with the introduction of the Holy Spirit, makes us His temple. Shouldn’t that bring an entirely new focus and meaning to our lives? What we choose to do and not do with His temple?
Let’s pray together: “Heavenly Father, seeing myself as Your temple is a tough concept to grasp. But I didn’t say that about me, You did. So help me to believe it, accept it as truth, and live it out. I need to simply believe what You tell me, about me. As above, so below.”