A Living Temple

Transcript

Hello, my friend… so glad you're with me today. This is By God's Call — day 104, A Living Temple.

I want you to hear these words carefully. Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians, chapter six, verses nineteen and twenty: "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."

Let that land.

For centuries, the people of God traveled to a temple. A building. A city. A holy place where God's presence dwelled — and there was distance, there was a veil, there was a boundary between the sacred and the ordinary. And then Jesus came — and that veil tore in two, from top to bottom. And God moved. The temple is no longer a building in Jerusalem. The temple is you. The holy God, the Creator of everything, chose to take up residence inside your everyday life — inside your Monday exhaustion, inside your workspace, inside your tired body at the end of a long day.

This is not a metaphor. This is theology. This is reality.

And Paul goes even deeper. He says: you were bought with a price. The cross sets your worth — not what the world says about you, not your failures, not what you managed to produce this week. You cost the blood of Jesus. Live like someone who knows what they're worth.

Now, there is a phrase here that can sting at first. Paul says: "You are not your own." And I understand — in a world that shouts autonomy, that tells you that you are the sole master of your own life, that sounds like loss. But wait. Belonging to a faithful Owner is not a cage — it is rest. Your life is not held in your own trembling hands. It is held in the hands of One who never fails. That is a different kind of freedom. A deeper freedom.

And then Paul does something that ought to stop us in our tracks. He doesn't say, "Glorify God with your prayers." He doesn't say, "with your songs." He says: glorify God in your body. In your body. In this physical, material, mortal thing — glorify God. Sleep, food, rest, the habits you return to without thinking — none of that is an "unspiritual" subject. Caring for your body is keeping God's house. And worshiping God happens in ordinary gestures: how you work, how you rest, how you speak to the person standing right next to you, how you serve.

Every act of the body can be worship. Every habit can be an offering.

And that is exactly where I want to call you to act today — genuinely act. Before breakfast, before you reach for your phone and let the day start pulling you in every direction — stop. Choose one bodily habit. Maybe it's the phone you scroll through late at night in bed. Maybe it's the sleep you've been shortchanging yourself on. Maybe it's as simple as drinking a glass of water before anything else. Choose one. And offer that habit to God as worship today. Not as a resolution. Not as willpower. As an offering — to the faithful Owner of the temple that is you.

Stay close to God. Pray — then act. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.