“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price.  Therefore honor God with your body,” 1 Cor. 6:19-20.

It struck me the other day how often people use the line, “my body is a temple” in reference to how they work out and what they allow themselves to eat.  I agree with that.  Not because I view my 48 year old body as a temple, but because God does.

But here is where I think we lose the correct focus.  Our culture tends to worship beautiful bodies. But our bodies aren’t supposed to be the recipient of our worship.  They are to be the place where worship happens.  The temple is a place OF worship, not a place TO BE worshipped.

If all of my time and energy are directed at making my “temple” beautiful, then I have missed the point completely.  I was created to bring attention and glory to the Builder of this “temple”, not to myself.  Taking care of myself and making sure my body is healthy and strong enables me to focus on God.  But it’s way too easy to let the “health” portion of that become the entire focus, instead of the means to a greater purpose.

Think about it…do the most perfect and beautiful bodies cause you to worship Jesus or the person that possesses that body?  If we are so worried about our bodies and competing with each other to be the best, how much time and energy does that rob from us that could be spent helping  and focusing on others?

The temple was meant to draw people in to worship.  It wasn’t built to be worshipped itself.  It was a physical representative of spiritual truth.  It was a reminder of who God was and the attention that He so deserves.  It was to be cared for and well maintained, but was only a conduit to something greater.

I’m all about healthy living.  God wants us to have a healthy lifestyle.  That’s just proper care for the “temple”.  But I want everything I do on the outside to pale in comparison to what God is doing on the inside.  I want the thing that people notice most to be what comes from my heart – my love for God and others.  The things that take the focus off of me and put it where it should be – on the God this “temple” worships.

“Represent” – another word we throw around. But that’s exactly what “my body is a temple” should do…

(Now I feel a little less guilty that I skipped the gym this morning 🙂 )