We Dedicate Our Bodies

In yesterday’s post, we saw the Israelites completing the Temple of the LORD.  They immediately dedicated the building to God.

The Temple of God was then dedicated with great joy by the people of Israel, the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the people who had returned from exile. During the dedication ceremony for the Temple of God, 100 young bulls, 200 rams, and 400 male lambs were sacrificed. And 12 male goats were presented as a sin offering for the twelve tribes of Israel. (Ezra 6:16-17 NLT)

This kind of dedication, though, just doesn’t connect with us.  We don’t understand the animal-sacrifice system because we don’t do it anymore.  That’s because the Temple isn’t a building anymore.  We started to get a different understanding of God’s Temple through Jesus, when he was standing next to the Temple building that was completed in the days of Ezra.

[T]he Jewish leaders demanded, "What are You doing? If God gave You authority to do this, show us a miraculous sign to prove it." "All right," Jesus replied. "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." "What!" they exclaimed. "It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and You can rebuild it in three days?" But when Jesus said "this temple," He meant His own body. (John 2:18-21 NLT)

Jesus wasn’t just referring to his own body.  He was starting to help us understand that all of us would soon see our bodies as Temples.  When we approach the Father through the Son (Jesus), we receive the Holy Spirit of God.

Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NLT)

We dedicate the Temple of the LORD, then, when we dedicate our bodies to God.  We use our hands, feet, eyes, ears, mouths and everything to bring people to God and to build them up as living stones, being built into the Temple of the Holy Spirit.

How about you? How do you use the body that the LORD gave you?  Is it for God’s purposes? Do you dedicate your body as a Temple to the LORD?