Temples of the Living God

What comes to mind or what emotion is evoked inside you when you walk inside a cathedral or a more traditionally ornate church building perhaps even with stained glass windows?

"For we are the temple of the living god; just as God said, 'I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God and they shall be my people.' " ~ 2 Corinthians 6:16

"There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one and the glory of the earthly is another." ~ 1 Corinthians 15:40

"Or do you not know that ...you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price therefore glorify God in your body." ~1 Corinthians 6:19 &20

This past Wednesday night we introduced the topic of the believer's body being a temple of the Holy Spirit using these verses as the premise.

Cathedrals, churches, and all buildings are built with a design in mind for fulfilling a specific purpose . . .Different buildings serve different purposes, right? Ebenezer's for illustration, is being/has been built to serve a specific purpose. In the same way that a building can be used for different purposes and even perhaps purposes not original to the design -our bodies are the same.

So much spiritual truth could perhaps be understood through taking closer looks at natural, physical things that we can perceive with our five senses. We can catch glimpses of the spiritual through the mirror of the natural, if you will.

Just in the same way that Jesus is the Word made flesh (John1:14) could we perhaps be vessels for communicating a timeless message through our art -our lives?? Are our bodies just perhaps the vehicles for doing so here on this earth??

Perhaps it is important that we think of the body in this context instead of a mindset that considers the body itself as "bad."

. . . present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and the members of your body as instruments of righteousness to God. ~Romans 6:13b

Could it be that the body is the outward expression/manifestation of the condition of one's soul??

If these things are true how much more so do we have a responsibility to be good stewards of even the health of our bodies!!

More to come . . . :)

Pearls

"Pearls are layers and layers of soothing nacre intended to insulate the delicate mollusk from the irritant that has abraded it. At root, a pearl is a disturbance, a beauty caused by something that isn't supposed to be there, about which something needs to be done. It is the interruption of equilibrium that creates beauty. Beauty is a response to provacation to intrusion. The pearl's beauty is made as a result just as art is made as a response to something in our environment that fires us up, sparks us, causes us to think differently. The pearl, like art, must be catalyzed. We, unlike the mollusk, can invite the disturbance that provokes us into art."

~taken from The Sound of Paper by Julia Cameron