The Sacred Temple of God

The human body is a marvel beyond description. The creative beauty of the physical body, even in our generation of learning, is still beyond understanding. I just read a medical book by a learned atheist that was marveling at the low voltage of electricity in the human body. He confessed that with all his learning there was still no answer for the source of this electrical charge that keeps man alive but is absolutely necessary for the body to exist and especially to heal when injured or sick. I wanted to scream at him about the life of the Great God that exists in every living person and is the source of this mystery left unanswered in his learned mind. But it is still beyond the physical where the real mystery begins.

Man is a soul, a personality, who literally has an eternal code written upon the pages of life. When Solomon was an old man with riches beyond price and wives by the hundred, all of his pleasures gave way to the cry of eternity. Listen to the words of his heart.“Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” (Ecclesiastes 12:1,5-7) Only the greatest darkness of godlessness or depravity can put out the light of the soul. It is in physical death “when the silver cord is loosed” that the soul is released to its’ long home, heaven or hell.

Man is also a spirit with capacity to know God and enjoy a personal relationship with Him. The body is profound, the soul is even more profound, but the spirit is a spiritual marvel. It is only when man experiences this fellowship with God that he then begins to understand the body and soul. The body is our door to those around us and physical life. The soul is the door inside where we discover our own pleasures and gifts, but the spirit is where we connect to our creation and learn to really live. By our spirit we can yield up all of our self – body, soul, and spirit – to become a sacred temple where the Great God is revealed. While others will certainly see this revelation of God, the beauty is first the transformation of the surrendered one. We immediately become a temple, a sanctuary for God Himself.

The entire book of First Corinthians is dedicated to the sacred shrine of the human temple when it is possessed of God. Apostle Paul said, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) The greatest pleasures of human life are derived from this indwelling of our God and Savior by the Spirit in our human vessel. The life of God is diffused in every aspect of our life when we are possessed of Him. GodÂ’s Word calls it, “…joy unspeakable and full of glory.” (1 Peter 1:8) Jesus said, “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” (St. John 17:22-23)

His possessing us is never coercive but always as our guest. His every manifestation in us is subject to our humble surrender. I love Paul’s words to the Corinthian saints. “…Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ?… But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” (1 Corinthians 6:13b, 14, 15a, 17) If you want the unspeakable joy, you must experience this unquestionable surrender of yourself to Him. All the great ministry of the Holy Ghost in our earthly body (His temple) is dependent on the full surrender of our will to His will. Any dependency of our flesh, any return to the flesh lifestyle immediately conflicts with the life of the Spirit freely flowing in us. The Spirit, by Paul, said to the Galatians, “Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain.” (Galatians 3:3-4) There is a multitude in our churches that have long ago reverted to the flesh life and know nothing of the joy of full surrender.

The gifts of the Holy Ghost are fully described in this great college level course of First Corinthians. The gifts of discernment, faith, prophecy, words of wisdom, words of knowledge, working of miracles, etc., should be the passion of every saint. The Spirit said, “But covet earnestly the best gifts.” (1 Corinthians 12:31a) and again, “Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts…” (1 Corinthians 14:1a) These gifts will bless the temple where they are manifest, but far greater they will turn the saint of God into a vessel of honor spreading God’s supernatural powers into our world. This is the perfect picture from the book of Acts, and if you will read the last chapter of Acts, you will discover it has no ending. God expected you and me – all of us – to be another chapter in that book. The book of Acts goes on wherever the sacred temples are filled with His Spirit.