01.Oct.2009 The Body: A Temple for God
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.” (NLV)
Everything that you hear is a seed. You can choose to let it be planted in you, or you can choose to not let it be planted in you. Whether it is good or bad, it can be planted into your heart, your mind, or your soul. You might not get to choose which seeds you get, but you can choose which seeds get planted. We cannot control what other people around us say and do, but we can control ourselves, and make decisions of which seeds we really let to be invested into our lives.
The Spirit of God can only reside in something He created. The church building is just that: a building. It is man-made; God Himself does not reside in it. God resides in us, inside of our hearts, not a building. The church is place where we meet to receive gifts and encouragement and love from each other. It feels good in the church building because we have set the atmosphere, an atmosphere of worship and of forgiveness and of love and of family. People can feel God when they walk in the building because we have met with God inside. We have invested time into making the atmosphere feel homely, so that people would feel at home inside. The church is just a building where people can find people to talk to when they want to find God.
We need to take care of our physical selves. Our bodies are temples of God. We cannot afford to let our bodies go just because we will get new ones in Heaven. That is one of the most selfish things we as Christians can do. For every one hour of exercise you get, another two hours are added to the end of your life. You should try to add on as many years to your life as you can, so that you will be able to do more for God, and to reach more people for Him. Proverbs 18:9 states that, “A lazy person is as bad as someone who destroys things.” (NLV) It is right there. We need to get up, get out, and do things to take care of our body so that we can reach the world for Him and for His name. The healthier we are, and the more physically fit we are, equals the more we are able to do for God.
The Spirit of God resides in us. If we do not take care of ourselves, we do not take care of Him. God needs us to be in as good a condition as we can be.
God is a God of joy. He wants us to live a good life, full of joy and happiness, not pain. If we do not eat healthily and exercise, not only do we live with less abilities, but we also run a much higher risk of heart disease, which can kill you before you have finished all that God has in store for you. Sometimes, God releases things straight into the world because His people are too stubborn to do it themselves, because they are not able to do it themselves, because they have not taken care of what they need, or needed, to take care of. Take care of yourself. It is commanded in the Bible, and your life will only get better because of it.
