your body is God’s temple

Becoming God’s Dwelling

Posted on by Betsy

Many years ago I went on a pilgrimage to Israel with a group of people who wanted to experience God’s presence first hand in the land where Jesus walked. The highlight of the trip was a visit to the Temple in Jerusalem where we were able to place our hands on the remaining Western, or “Wailing” Wall to pray. The facade of the wall was filled with cracks and crevices between the large stones, and we were invited to stick rolled up pieces of paper with prayer requests there that we had carried with us from our families and our churches back home. There were people all around us praying out loud in their native languages: Hebrew, French, German, English …pilgrims from every corner of the globe had come to that sacred spot to pray. The minute my palms touched the ancient stones, something happened to me. Suddenly all the surrounding noise dulled in my ear and became a singular harmonic hum. I could feel a spiritual current of energy travel from my fingertips to my forehead and toes. The yip yip yips of the nearby women celebrating a teenager’s bat mitzvah faded into the background and all I could hear was a vibrating resonance that was other-worldly. There is an ethereal sense of God’s spirit in those stones, and I could envision the angels themselves descending to sing along with us. It was a moment of feeling connected to God that I will never forget. God dwelt among us that day.

We remember that God designed humanity with the purpose of dwelling with us in the perfection and sweetness of the Garden of Eden. But when sin happened, that fellowship was broken and God has been searching for a dwelling place ever since. In the book of Exodus we read that God instructed that a movable tabernacle be built in the wilderness of Moses’ time. Instructions were given to construct an Ark in which God would reside. When the people finally settled down in the Promised Land, the glorious temple was built in Jerusalem in Solomon’s time, and the Ark was moved there permanently. But then came the destruction of the Temple when the people rebelled and rejected God. Israel was sent into exile by the Babylonian king. Many years later, Cyrus of Persia allowed the Israelites to return to Jerusalem and later still, King Herod the Great rebuilt the Temple in Jesus’ time, but the Ark was lost.

But by then, the Temple was unnecessary. Jesus was sent to be our temple, our priest, and our sacrifice. Jesus was God’s dwelling incarnate and became the new and forever temple. His sacrifice on the cross makes all the rituals of the former priesthood obsolete. As he told the woman at the well in John 4:23-24,

“Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit and his worshipers must worship in Spirit and in truth.” (New International Version)

Paul continues this teaching in Ephesians, proclaiming that all in whom Jesus dwells are now being built into a holy temple in the Lord. God dwells in us!

Ephesians 2:21-22 (New International Version)

21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

How is your temple doing? Are your walls strong and able to withstand invading conquerors or is your faith weak and in need of some mortar and stone to shore up your foundation? Do people see the light of Christ shining through the stained glass windows of your actions and words? Are you pursuing holiness this Lent with your spiritual disciplines? Would God want to dwell in your temple?

Lent is a reminder that our temples are fragile and require daily upkeep. May God bless our building and re-building efforts as we move along toward Easter.

The Wailing Wall by Faye Gardner

Tabernacled Joy

Posted on by Betsy

Here is an amazing truth for you today: You are God’s dwelling place in which God lives by his spirit.

This one sentence undoes thousands of years of temple building. Let’s do a brief history lesson on the Tabernacle/Temple thing. In the beginning, God designed a perfect dwelling place in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve but when they sinned, they were expelled. From that point on, fellowship with God was broken and yet somehow, God still desired to dwell with us. As we follow the story from Genesis to Exodus, we see the people wandering in the wilderness after God delivered them from Egypt and Pharaoh’s vicious pursuit. At this point, God made a plan for them to build a mobile tabernacle, a “meeting tent,” so that his presence could go with them everywhere, and gave Moses very specific instructions for building it.

Now let’s fast forward to the Temple. For Jewish people, God’s Temple meant something very specific: It meant the Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple that was built by King Solomon. The Temple that housed the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies. The Temple that was destroyed by the Babylonians, and then rebuilt by Zerubbabel, before being destroyed a second time by the Romans in 70 AD. The Temple which now remains only as a single wall, the Wailing Wall, is still a sacred place for Jewish people. 

Now we move on to the arrival of our Messiah, Jesus. When Jesus came, he completed God’s full plan for the Temple by becoming the temple himself. As high priest, Jesus offers the best and most complete sacrifice at the altar and allows us to be tabernacled with him, becoming the dwelling place ourselves.

Hebrews 9:11-14 (Common English Bible)

11 But Christ has appeared as the high priest of the good things that have happened. He passed through the greater and more perfect meeting tent, which isn’t made by human hands (that is, it’s not a part of this world). 12 He entered the holy of holies once for all by his own blood, not by the blood of goats or calves, securing our deliverance for all time. 13 If the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkled ashes of cows made spiritually contaminated people holy and clean, 14 how much more will the blood of Jesus wash our consciences clean from dead works in order to serve the living God? He offered himself to God through the eternal Spirit as a sacrifice without any flaw.

Paul goes on later to explain the completion of the plan in Ephesians 2:

 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

This is the great charge and challenge for today. As a dwelling place for God, how will you reflect his Spirit to the world in a winsome, inviting way? Do people see enough of God’s Spirit in you that they want to come in and know more? Are you a reflection of his glory and grace?

May we strive to be an open door to others until everyone hears.

The Spirit inside

With doors opened to welcome

Tabernacled joy

Sacred Place by Michelle Robertson

Being Slaves to our Whims

Posted on by Betsy

Raise your hand if you ate and/or drank too much over the holidays.

Mid-January always seems to be the time to confess our sins of overindulgence. One friend shared that she couldn’t stop eating the Christmas candy and her scale is confirming it. Another claims to have grown an evil eating-machine-twin that she is now trying to shed. Most of us can truthfully say that we experienced a departure from healthy eating over the holidays. Diets have been abandoned, our exercise bikes are being used as clothes racks, and all of our good intentions fled along with the Thanksgiving turkey.

You can put your hand down now.

In addition, the pandemic’s stay-at-home guidance was coupled with the attack on the nation’s Capitol last week, leaving us welded to our couches. Our days find us mindlessly engaging in anxiety-eating as we consume endless hours of news, sweets, and tweets. No wonder we feel out of sorts and bloated of mind, body, and soul.

Paul’s letter to the Corinthians reminds us that we need to take care of our bodies because they are a gift from God. The Master honors us with our bodies, and Paul calls us to honor God with how we use our bodies. He warns us against becoming a slave to our whims.

1 Corinthians 6 (The Message)

12 Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I’d be a slave to my whims.

Paul goes on to caution us about stuffing our body with food. I think if he were alive today, he might also warn against stuffing our minds with too much news and social media. None of this is good for us in large quantities.

13 You know the old saying, “First you eat to live, and then you live to eat”? Well, it may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that’s no excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor him with your body!

Your body is God’s temple. What you fill it with matters to God. You see, he has a plan to treat your body with the same resurrection power that Jesus received.

14-15 God honored the Master’s body by raising it from the grave. He’ll treat yours with the same resurrection power. Until that time, remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master’s body.

You were created with dignity. God gave you a body to honor, as he honors you. What are you indulging in right now that needs to change? What are you putting in your mind, your heart, or your mouth that does not honor God? Is it time to put down the beer and turn off the TV?

Where is God calling you to make changes?

As Paul says, we can’t become slaves to our whims. Yes, things are incredibly difficult right now. But Paul reminds us that’s no excuse. Taking a 30 minute walk will clear things up significantly, or at least get you away from the candy bowl and the television for half an hour. Get up and get moving, and you will feel so much better.

Your body is created with dignity. Treat it as such.

Get Moving by Kathy Schumacher