05/12/2021
When you opened your eyes this morning, and you wiped the sleep from them, did it feel like you were pulling back the curtains in God’s home, and cleaning the windows of His temple? Did you feel like a child who was doing his morning chores before being called to the breakfast table where he would run into his Father’s arms? Well, our bodies are the dwelling place of God, and also His temple, so this is a good way to think of how we should approach the earliest moments of our day.
“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”
1 Corinthians 3:16 ESV
Every child should feel like they are more than a guest in their home, and that this is where they belong. There should be a settled confidence that this physical place is many things; a place of spiritual refreshment, a resting place, a safe haven where we are defended, and where we get our sustenance, but most of all, it is our parent’s home, and the focal point of the unconditional love in our lives. This is much the same way we should feel about our own bodies; they are more than a flesh and blood shell that surrounds us, or something to be fed, and maintained; they are our home, our sanctuary, and that place we share with our spouse, and God... it is a place where we become one flesh in both a physical and spiritual sense.
“In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
Ephesians 2:22 ESV
Do you ever stop to consider yourself in this way? Do you see yourself as a home, and temple for God, that is under perpetual construction, and a shared body and spirit with your spouse that grows in love each day? Perhaps you are one of those people who adamantly says “I am my own person! No one rules over me!”, but as often, and emphatically, as you might say that, you can never really make it true. You will always find that as much as you would like to be a pristine and solitary cabin, nestled deep in the woods, you are actually a dilapidated mansion, and a run-down temple that you have neglected, and which has become overgrown by the vines of a fallen world. You don’t even own a paper title to yourself because God already holds the eternal deed to you.
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV
People who can’t give themselves fully in faith, or marriage, are lacking two key ingredients in their lives... the ability to trust, and to love. They keep everyone at arms distance, denying God his rightful place, and becoming selfish. You will see them with a wedding ring on their finger, or sitting on the pew each Sabbath, but the commitment is not there, and the real joy of a loving life is missing. They have driven a wedge between themselves and God’s temple, Christ’s church, and their spouse’s flesh that is meant to be one with theirs.
“In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.”
Ephesians 5:28-30 ESV
So let’s ask ourselves again about how we felt this morning when we first opened our eyes... did it feel like we were pulling back the curtains in God’s home, and cleaning the windows of His temple? When we turned to see our spouse next to us did we feel a warmth of love, and was it like looking at an extension of ourselves? If the answer to either of these questions is no then it is not a time for a change of venue, but a much needed change within ourselves. It is time to begin building God’s home, and mending the one flesh that we have allowed to become separated. Are we ready, and up to the task? Is it time to begin our morning chores?
Prayer:
Father, thank you for abiding within us, and making us your temple. Thank you for your Son Jesus, and your Holy Spirit who both live here with us. Thank you Lord for making us one flesh with our spouse so that together we have become one abode, one temple, and one body founded in your love. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you our God who is with us always, and has loved us before we knew how to love you. Praised be your name for sending your Son Jesus to redeem us, and your Holy Spirit to guide us in living a righteous life. Great is your mercy, and the grace you have poured over us through Christ. Hear our prayers of contrition and our pleas for forgiveness Father, and honor them as we open the doors of our hearts to you, and find peace in being your home, and temple; in being the mansion you have prepared for Jesus and your Holy Spirit. We worship you Father, and pray that you will find us worthy on the day of judgement. See not our sins, but only the radiant cloak of Jesus, and let our image be His as you seat us at your table forevermore.
“that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Ephesians 3:16-19 ESV
Rich Forbes