Can you believe it’s week 40 of our 52-week series?! As I was looking over all the verses I wanted to memorize in 2021, I realized that there are more verses remaining than there are weeks left! This week’s verse is one I had planned to memorize closer to the New Year because most people start focusing on resolutions and getting their body in better shape.
1 Corinthians 3:16-17 says, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”
Do you treat your body like it’s God’s temple? The implications of that are pretty far reaching: How to you feed it? Maintain it? Protect it? Dress it? These questions might seem simple enough, but when it comes to our bodies, there’s often a big gap between what we know we SHOULD do and what we actually do.
For instance, the obesity rate in the US continues to rise. It’s currently above 40%, impacting more than 100 million people. And, on average, nearly 20 people per minute are abused by a partner – that’s more than 10 million people a year! Whether it’s through damage that we cause ourselves, or damage we allow others to cause, clearly a lot of us are having difficulty really treating our body like God’s holy temple.
And even when our body is well cared for, there’s the additional consideration of how we present it, how we dress. You don’t have to look very hard to see how short we’re collectively falling; just take a look at what people wear next time you walk the aisles of target, or dare I say it… what they are wearing sitting next to you at church.
I think it’s time as believers that we change the statistics for followers of Christ by taking this verse seriously. How? We start at home. Start with the temple that God gave you. Fed it well. Move your body. Give it rest as God commands. Dress modestly. Teach your children to honor their bodies by the example that you set. Use self-control and seek good counsel if you are in an environment where you are harmed.
Check out my week 40 video above where I dive a little deeper into this verse and share a few thoughts from my heart.
Are you viewing your body differently now? This week ask God to show you ways you can take care of the temple He gave you. Ask Him to guide you on what choices you make when you get dressed and to help you set an example that represents Christ.
Know you are loved,
