The Gift of a Temple

"You surely know that your body is a temple where the Holy Spirit lives. The Spirit is in you and is a gift from God. You are no longer your own. God paid a great price for you. So use your body to honor God." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 CEV

If you are like me, you've heard this message before. You can agree--OK, my body is a temple--that means that I am to respect it. In my personal case, I have always envisioned this flame, deep inside my rib cage, maybe behind the lungs--and that is where the Holy Spirit lives inside me.

Well, today reading this verse, a new thought came to me. What about our minds--our thoughts? If I was to rewrite this verse with that thought in mind, it would say this, "So use your mind/ thoughts to honor God." Wow! That puts a new twist on things don't it?

It seems that at times, we can put our body under the control of Christ and the Holy Spirit, but our minds are something else. It seems that we can come to the worldly thinking that what goes on in our minds is our own secret thing and it doesn't affect anything. But is that true?

If we say that we are God's chosen, that we treat our body like the temple that we need to do, in order to honor what He has done for us, yet keep our minds out of the picture, are we being complete? If we think thoughts of jealousy, of hatred, of gossip, is that honoring God? If we take drugs that impair our thought process, or get drunk, or fall into pornography and fill our minds with images that are truly not from God, are we honoring God with all of us?

I think you know the answer. If God wants us to honor Him with making our body a temple to the wonderful gift that He left for us to help us on our earthly walk, we need to incorporate ALL of our being--body, heart, soul & mind.

Jesus came and gave all of Himself to you--He didn't hold back anything--not even His very life. What about you? Can you reciprocate the same back to Him? Believe me, He wants you--all of you. Please give it to Him.