The Temple of God

   “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3: 16)

   What would you do if you walked into church this Sunday and there were remnants of a party held the night before?  Perhaps pizza boxes and empty beer cans strewn throughout the sanctuary; cigarette butts ground out on the floor and even a few party-goers who didn’t quite make it home asleep on the pews.  I suspect you would turn around and leave in disgust.

   Yet this is the condition our Lord sometimes finds within us; full of sin rather than full of love.  Are we any less guilty of desecrating God’s temple in our body than those who might defile the building we call church?  We question why we don’t feel the presence of God within us when we fail to provide Him a proper temple in which to dwell.

   “He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, as well as the money changers seated there.  He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area…” (John 2: 14 – 15).  We, just as the merchants in the temple of Jerusalem, sometimes fill our bodily temple with many things that have no place in the house of God.  We are filled with hate, lust, and pride.  We abuse our bodies with drugs and alcohol.  We, like Jesus, must do what is necessary to drive out those things which soil our temple.  We must make of ourselves a proper home for our Lord.

   We need to take inventory of what is in the temple of our bodies.  When necessary we must take a whip and drive the evil from within.  If we truly desire the presence of God within us we must offer Him a proper dwelling place.

Lord, my temple sometimes becomes unfit.

I fill it with earthly desires and sin.

Help me to provide a proper temple.

That you may come and dwell within me.

Amen