What's Your Body For?

When we receive Christ and The Holy Spirit comes to live in us. If that has happened in you, there are ramifications.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20
19 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, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.

In his first letter to the believers in Corinth, Paul asks them whether or not they are aware of this spiritual truth. He asks them whether or not they realize that their bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. If we think on it literally and try to discern the physical mechanics of what is happening here, it could blow our minds. We’re talking about the God of creation, the One whom the heavens cannot contain, and the God who is bigger than the universe itself. If you have received Him, He has taken up residence in your body. That temporary tent that you are living in has become the very house of God.

Don’t you realize that your body is God’s house? You have been bought and paid for as someone buys and pays for a home. For those of us who have received Him, we have likewise been bought and paid for, not with cash, but by the precious life blood of the only begotten Son of God. You really don’t belong to yourself anymore. Your life is no longer your life.

Although I’m speaking in terms of home ownership, the implications for our lives go much deeper. We were slaves; purchased from the slave market of sin, bought for the purchase price of God’s own Son. Jesus was the original humanitarian philanthropist, making His home in us where we were, as we were, rather than merely having us move into His house.

I suppose if you have never really believed on the Son, this really wouldn’t apply to you. Your life is your life. I guess instead of being a temple, your body might be more accurately described as an amusement park. If you have a better way of describing it, I’d love to hear it. As for me, before I knew Christ, that’s what my body was for. My life was my life and I used my body in a way that would bring me pleasure. If I wanted to drink, I drank. If I wanted to watch something, I watched it. If it felt good, I likely did it. I don’t want you to write me off as being a completely pleasure seeking individual. I had, as most people do, some sense of morality and societal obligation. However, in the truest sense of the word, I was my own boss. I expected the world to revolve around me and I spent the bulk of my efforts trying to run my own universe in the way I saw fit.

Have you been bought with a price? What is your body exactly? Perhaps your body is part temple and part amusement park. Can that be? If you have been purchased from the slave market of sin, what now? Is this salvation experience all that there is? Is Jesus nothing more than a destination, or some kind of theme park entry fee, where once paid, we’re at liberty to do whatever pleases us?

What is your body to you? It might be the temple of the Holy Spirit. It could be your version of Disney World. I have no idea. You would have to tell me. Could it be some combination of the two? Perhaps it is a part temple and part theme park. It might be used as a temple on Sunday, and a brothel for Monday through Saturday.

Having the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit is not the final destination of the Christian faith. It is the beginning of a new life under new management. To live otherwise would be like to having gotten off with a warning from a police officer, only to continue speeding again. Realizing the way in which God loved us and having received the love of God, our life’s story has not come to its conclusion. Suppose you find yourself in just such a place. You have realized who He is, who you are in His sight, and you have received Him. What now? Having received Him, our response is to remain in Him.