The Temple of the Holy Spirit – One Word Devo
TODAY’S SCRIPTURE 1 Corinthians 6:9-20
Men and women lie, but numbers don’t lie. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 40 percent of all the babies born in 2011 were illegitimate. There are social media websites that are designed solely for strangers who want to meet for sex. Sex trafficking is at an all-time high. Depending on how the research is calculated, as much as 30 percent of all websites contain pornography. Sex sells everything from hamburgers to tennis shoes to cars. We live in a sex-saturated society.
The ancient world was not much different when it comes to sex obsession. A temple to the Greek goddess Aphrodite was located in Corinth. The priestesses were essentially prostitutes. To honor Aphrodite, men would come from all over the world to engage in sex with the temple priestesses. It was a form of hedonistic worship.
The apostle Paul establishes a church in Corinth during his second missionary journey. He knows that the Gospel is strong enough to save those who have given their bodies over to fornication. Thankfully, many obey the Gospel and become Christians. Paul commends them in 1 Corinthians 6 when he writes, “Do not be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality…will enter the kingdom of heaven. And such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (6:9-11).
Today, many people have left grossly immoral lifestyles and been changed by the power of God. They repented of their sins, and they stand before God forgiven, having been washed by the blood of Christ. But how can we prevent others or ourselves from following a path of sexual sin? By remembering who were are and whose we are. Paul ends the passage about sexual sin by asking the rhetorical question, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own” (vs. 19).
Our bodies are made by God, and they are a temple of the Holy Spirit. We must use our bodies to glorify God. We must avoid contaminating this precious gift by involving ourselves in sexual sin.
Today, I will…remember that my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. I will not use it to please myself. I will use it the way God intended.