1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you and have from God? And ye are not your own for you were bought with a price, the Holy blood of Jesus.
THOUGHTS:
When asked to write a devotional for Lenten Devotions, I decided to go deep to my roots. My Grandma has memorized a set of bible verses every night before she goes to bed and I wanted to get to know her better by exploring one of those bible verses today.
When thinking about this passage I immediately go to the fact that I'm subsisting on four hours of sleep today. How does one make decisions about what to do every day? If your friends need you, do you turn them down in order to treat your body right? Why do so many people in the world treat their bodies so poorly? I have friends that loose sleep, friends that drink till they toss their cookies, friends that smoke. Why do people treat their bodies so poorly? Treating ourselves poorly is extremely common I've seen at least, and I want to use this as an opportunity to encourage everyone to try to take some part of the day out so that they can treat their bodies like a temple.
To me, this first verse is a pretty self-explanatory passage, its just almost never done especially while in college.
To address the second part of this passage. "And ye are not your own for you were bought with a price, the Holy blood of Jesus." I kinda think that this verse relates very well to the temple verse in that I think that part of the reason people don't treat their bodies like a temple is that they go around saying I too much. I'm stressed, I need this, I need to take a break on the couch watching Iron Chef (what I'm currently doing while writing this), I'm sad and need a drink, I'm happy and I'm going to celebrate by getting horribly drunk etc. What would happen if instead we said, "what is god calling me to do today? Would we stop this self-destructive behavior that so many of us engage in while we are in school? An interesting question to leave off with..
PRAYER:
Dear Lord. Allow us to keep our bodies a holy temple to you o lord. Allow us to take care of ourselves and to always ask, what are you calling us to do today?" How can we be your good grain, as bought by Jesus Christ our lord?
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Thoughts by Matthew Goldenberg, senior psychology major active with Lutheran Campus Ministry at George Mason University
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