Today’s scripture: 1 Corinthians 3:16-23 (NRSV) (The Message) (KJV) What might God be saying to me?
My thoughts (Terri Brown):
“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” (verse 16; NIV).
The temple of God, my body, your body; everyone houses the Spirit of God and yet often mistreats that temple even though we carefully protect our church, the sanctuary, any building we deem holy because that is where we worship God. So Paul is telling followers, as well as all of us today, that what we do outside of the church and what we do to our bodies is destroying that temple and that Spirit. We set the house of God apart for God and God’s service. So as Christians, we are to separate from worldly ways which interfere with protecting our bodies.
I have been attempting for years to be more holistic. I teach the people I work with that mental health and physical health go hand and hand. And when I read the Bible, especially passages like this, I add that spiritual connection as well as social and intellectual because those aspects of me, when off balance, add to the destruction of my temple, my spirit, my body, my whole. But I also must tell myself, as I do my clients, that this temple did not get destroyed over night and I must gradually rebuild and refresh as the damage done has created a delicate situation. Like the towering flimsy and unstable stack of Jenga blocks, I must carefully put each piece in place with concentration and precision.
I can see God and Jesus and other great holy dwellers of heaven walking around each of us as if we were that Jenga tower and carefully considering what action would be best to put us in a situation which will not collapse the tower but rather strengthen the base and progressively transform the fragile temple into a gorgeous structure with blocks labeled: Hopeful, Empowered, Authentic, Bountiful, Honorable, Valuable, Creative, Just, Blessed, Exquisite, or Gifted. And the group would joyfully take away the situations which would give us the labels of: Fat, Ugly, Stupid, Drunk, Demented, Unstable, Weak, Worthless, Pathetic, Fake, Incompetent, Sick, or Unbearable.
Yet we put those labels on ourselves daily as we compare ourselves to the world or to societal expectations. And we let those expectations eat us up, or add weight to our bodies, or cause us to drink, or to use drugs, or to act greedy (keeping up with the Joneses), or to dress a certain way, or to be promiscuous, or to indulge in millions of other futile experiences that represent a mere facet of our lives, a block in the game tower.
So today, I am asking God to assist me with putting together a temple which is more secure, that can endure the test of time and lead me to my ultimate goal of landing in heaven one day in a place where labels do not mean anything. And I want to get there by heeding Paul’s message to the Corinthians. I will not get there by thinking that I know it all, or that I can have it all. I will use what I know, follow the Word, and surround myself by others who can help build me up and assist me with honoring the temple entrusted to me here on earth.
Thought for the day: “All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future — all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God” (verses 21b-23; NIV).
We encourage you to include a time of prayer with this reading. If you need a place to get started, consider the suggestions on the How to Pray page.