Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Did you know one of the reasons we selected the title “Walking with Jesus” for these daily reflections is simply the wonder of what it would be like to actually, tangibly, practically walk with Jesus each day in the normal, everyday stuff of our lives!?
We’re with the apostle Paul these days as he’s writing to the Christians in the Greek city of Corinth in the year 54ad. In his third chapter, Paul says some very significant things which call us to understand how awesome this concept of ‘walking with Jesus’ really is!
Paul is dictating and Timothy is scribing his words on the parchments: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.” (1 Cor. 3:16,17) Do you hear several remarkable statements here? When Paul says “you yourselves are God’s temple” Paul is speaking to a group of people but asking them to see this concept of ‘being the temple of God’ as an individual miracle God is accomplishing INSIDE each of them, personally, as they trust Jesus Christ to be their Savior and Lord. Temples or places of religious worship are something you can find in every country of the world going back several millennia!
As you’ve seen they are manmade places of worship. People gather there to pray and worship what they believe is God or some spiritual beings they believe will help them. Corinth and Ephesus were both filled with temples. But Paul was saying something no religion claimed: PEOPLE could themselves become temples of Almighty God!
Just as it was presumed God or spiritual beings resided in manmade temples, which is why people came there to hopefully encounter these spiritual beings, Paul was declaring the powerful, radical truth which Jesus Christ had declared… that a normal human being, saved by the power of God from their sin bondage and sin condemnation, could actually become the earthly residence of the Holy Spirit of God as God’s Spirit actually filled that new Christian. It’s one of the many miracles of the salvation or ‘born again’ experience Jesus told Nicodemus about in John 3:3-7 and Jesus explained to His disciples in the Upper Room in John 13-17.
Do you also see Paul speaking to these Corinthian Christians about their being Spirit filled temples, both as individuals and as a group, an ‘ekklesia’ of God’s people? That’s what Paul means when he uses the phrases: “God’s Spirit dwells in your midst” and “you together are God’s temple”. It means when Christians gather together there is a dual miracle happening. The Holy Spirit of God is within each of them individually, but also the Holy Spirit is among them, or in their midst as a group, and that’s the miracle of the church, the ‘ekklesia’ Jesus promised He would build with His people.
So, the obvious question is this: As you go through your daily life, are you excited about the fact you are ‘walking with Jesus’ because the Holy Spirit of God lives within you and is guiding your life? And when you are with other Christians, do you sense the wonder of the Presence of the Spirit of God with you, as a group? My friends, I hope you never tire of considering the outrageous miracle of the Holy Spirit of God IN God’s people and WITH God’s people!
Did you notice Paul declares God takes this miracle very, very seriously? Paul said: “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.” So, what does that look like in your part of the world my friends? How do people ‘destroy God’s temple’, the individual Christian person, and how do some seek to ‘destroy the temple of God’s people together‘? We know that in both cases Paul is not talking about a cement block building, nor a little hut under a tree, nor an ornate cathedral. Paul is talking about Christian people, both individuals and a group of them together, an ‘ekklesia’.
Paul is assuring us that, in a world where Christians are often targeted, persecuted, sometimes tortured and sometimes killed, God takes that very seriously and will hold the perpetrators accountable for their rejection of God and their defilement of the human temples in which God resides, Christians! Why? Because the miracle of the Holy Spirit living in and among God’s people is a SACRED, HOLY miracle of God!
Paul also warns us again about the foolishness of human wisdom. Paul says: “Do not deceive yourselves… The wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight... The Lord knows the thoughts of those people presumed to be wise are futile.” (1 Cor. 3:18-20) It’s very clear isn’t it my friends? God’s wisdom is based on God’s truth, God’s unlimited knowledge and God’s omniscience through all time. Compared to that, even the most intelligent human beings think foolishness, they speak foolishness and make very unwise choices which are self-destructive and are cumulatively destroying our world and the human race!
Finally, Paul summarizes his thoughts with one great challenge concluding this third chapter, do you see it? “So then, no more boasting about human leaders!” (1 Cor. 3:21) No matter who they are, no matter what they have accomplished in life, it is meaningless as compared to the majesty, all-powerfulness, and holiness of Creator, Almighty God. Furthermore, “all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future – all are yours, because you are in Christ and Jesus Christ is God!” (1 Cor. 3:21-23)
Paul is saying that in the mysterious and miraculous relationship God offers us IN our salvation through Jesus Christ, not only does everything about us change… our identity, our values, our priorities, our purposes in life, and our eternal destiny, but in our union with Jesus, indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit nothing in the present or the future is beyond possible, for God can do anything, anytime with anyone, especially those filled by His Holy Spirit! Now can you wrap your hearts and minds around this mysterious miracle my friends?
Let’s join more than 30,000 young adults at Passion 2020 conference, celebrating that there’s NOTHING God can’t do, and all that Paul wrote about is real and it’s happening all around the world today! Here’s that song…
Today’s Scripture is 1 Cor. 3:16-23.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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