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Honor God with Your Body
12 Some of you say, “We can do anything we want to.” But I tell you not everything is good for us. So I refuse to let anything have power over me. 13You also say, “Food is meant for our bodies, and our bodies are meant for food.” But I tell you that God will destroy them both. We are not supposed to do indecent things with our bodies. We are to use them for the Lord who is in charge of our bodies. 14God will raise us from death by the same power he used when he raised our Lord to life.
15Don't you know that your bodies are part of the body of Christ? Is it right for me to join part of the body of Christ to a prostitute? No, it isn't! 16 Don't you know that a man who does that becomes part of her body? The Scriptures say, “The two of them will be like one person.” 17But anyone who is joined to the Lord is one in spirit with him.
18Don't be immoral in matters of sex. That is a sin against your own body in a way no other sin is. 19 You surely know that your body is a temple where the Holy Spirit lives. The Spirit is in you and is a gift from God. You are no longer your own. 20God paid a great price for you. So use your body to honor God.
Reflect
Your body is incredibly important to God – he made it, after all; Jesus redeemed it and the Holy Spirit lives within it. Consider the two powerful images presented here, and ask yourself how your treatment and use of your own body might change if the truth of them really got a hold of you.
First, each of our bodies are parts of the greater body of Christ. My body is a member of his body just as my arm is a member of mine. Remember, we’re talking about our actual physical bodies here, not just an abstract spiritual reality. Any power, life or agency for the kingdom of God that my body has is dependent on its attachment to The Body: we are interdependent or we die.
Second, our bodies are temples within which the Holy Spirit dwells. The church is itself a temple of the Spirit; within it we are individually also sanctuaries for the Spirit. It’s this presence within us, made possible by the cross, that makes us holy – saints, as Paul calls the Corinthians earlier.
Sexual immorality is just one way we can betray that precious relationship with the One to whom we are attached, and the One who lives within us. Let’s remember who we belong to, and what it cost to create that intimate, indivisible connection. Let’s live our interconnected Body life with integrity, and let’s make sure we’re not trying to sneak other gods into the temple.
Respond
Holy God, help me to function as a healthy member of the body of your Son. Holy Spirit, help me make my body a home for your holiness. I am yours, and I long to live that truth. I ask trusting in the One who was raised from the dead. Amen.
Greg Paul
Greg Paul is a pastor and member, as well as the founder, of the Sanctuary community in Toronto. Sanctuary, a community in which people who are wealthy and people who are poor live, work and share their experiences and resources on a daily basis, makes a priority of welcoming and caring for some of the most hurting and excluded people in Canada’s largest city, including people struggling with addiction, mental illness, prostitution, and homelessness. Greg is the author of the recently released Resurrecting Religion and several other award-winning books: Simply Open; Close Enough to Hear God Breathe; The Twenty-Piece Shuffle; and God In The Alley. He is the father of four children, and married to Maggie, who has three children of her own.