Your body…the Lord’s Temple.
The creator has made man with flesh and bones. He created man in His own image and breathed His spirit into him and man became a living soul.(Gen.2: 7.)

The above passage explains that when God created man, His spirit dwelt within us. (Job.32: 8.) “ There is a spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty gives them understanding.
Prov.20: 27. “ The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord searching the inward parts of the belly”.
The spirit of God gives us understanding to judge what is right and wrong. The same spirit helps us to search our thoughts and actions and check our lives as to how we are living, i.e. in God’s way or worldly way of all abominations (i.e. bad deeds).

When this spirit of God dwells in us He will lead us into righteous living.Ezek.36: 27. “I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgments and do them. John.4: 24 teaches us that God is a spirit, and when He dwells in us, our bodies should be pure and clean like His temple.

Most people think that the life that is given to them on this earth is to eat, drink and be merry. Living a comfortable life is a great achievement and they fill their lives with wrath, drunkenness, and deceit and gather riches through wrong ways. To preserve their heritage they lose their peace of mind, health and happiness. Is this what life is all about? NO! Life is more than that. It is eternal life for which we have to prepare.

The first thing to start with is our body. Though on this earth our bodies are flesh and bone, in this body the spirit of the Lord wishes to live and guide us in everyday life. From the time we are awake till we sleep, each little work that we do, each word we speak, each thought we think can be controlled by the Almighty through this spirit. As our mind controls each part of our body, i.e. hands, feet, movements, etc, so also the spirit controls every good thought, word and deed. When we do something wrong it is not the work of the Lord because the spirit always does the will of God. Rom.8: 27.”He searches the heart and knows what the mind of the spirit is because He makes intercession… according to the will of God”. That is the reason when we do something wrong our inner spirit checks it and warns us continually about it. But human ego, the fleshy nature ignores the conscience and still continues to do wrong.

For example a smoker knows that smoking is injurious to his health and his neighbors’. It causes pollution but in spite of this he continues to smoke to satisfy his craving! Is this right?
It is the same case with a drinking. In spite of knowing that wine or alcoholic drinks destroy the body, i.e. the temple of the Lord, even some religious leaders also drink, defiling and making their bodies impure.

God has created our bodies to be kept clean, healthy and pure. He tells us to commit our body, soul and spirit to Him and He will give us eternal life. Are we really committing our lives into His
hands or are we busy preparing to eat, drink and enjoy worldly pleasures? Are we killing our conscience and doing wrong things, making merry for our comforts and defiling our bodies?

  
In Matt. 21: 12. we read how Messiah entered the temple of Jerusalem and cleaned it by driving away all the traders and moneychangers. “My house shall be called a house of prayer but you have made it a den of thieves”. Are we also turning our bodies into a den of thieves with our bad lives? The book of Leviticus tells us about the purification of our earthly bodies. Lev.4 tells us what to eat and what not to eat. Modern science has proved that the unclean things that we should not eat actually contain germs that are harmful to our body and such substances lead to diseases like cancer.

 Many people quote from Acts.16: 15. and try to justify that Lord Himself has told Peter to eat them. The Lord’s words here actually refer to the Gentiles to whom Peter was asked to go! Peter was able to interpret the vision in Acts.10. Again 1Tim.5: 23, in which the Apostle Paul says “Drink no longer water but a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and often infirmities” is taken as a license to drink.  Proverbs.6 & 7 tell us what things God hates.  How should our bodies be? Read Rom.12: 1-2. Our bodies should be holy, acceptable to God. Do not have any fellowship with unbelievers and unrighteous people. 2Cor.6: 17. “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you. 2Cor.7: 1. Therefore having these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord”

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