Saturday, November 5, 2011

My body is a temple

 Right then! I did a Bible study the other day. Well, sort of... We live in a technological age and for some reason, these days it seems easier to open my laptop, wait for it to boot up, check my e-mails, log into Smile City to earn points, cruise through Trademe to see what costumes are in the latest listings, log into Facebook, "network" with my buddies (because I'm a Christian and we all know that Christians don't gossip - especially online), play a few games of Wordscraper, try to up my score on Word Drop and then check into Facebook's Daily Bible Scripture...instead of grabbing my actual Bible from the bedside cabinet and opening all those big, heavy pages. Yes, worship can take many forms...
Anyway, the Scripture of the day was from Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Hmmm...interesting. I have a question on that one. How do we DO that?  I've been around God Circles for a few decades now and during that time I've had plenty of advice on how NOT to use my body as a living sacrifice, the whole "Temple of the Holy Spirit" thing and all that no smoking, no boozing, no sex outside of marriage and ABSOLUTELY no tattoos or dancing or anything that might be considered "fun". Sadly this temple has had a few cracks in the plaster over time so I thought this verse showed a lot of promise. Instead of what I DON'T do to please God, I can think about what I DO do (*snigger* I just said "do do" *smirk*)
So, here I am, a grotty old Temple who could do with a few refurbishments. I've been scratching my head a little and trying to work out what I should be doing with my body to turn this run down shack of a body into more suitable accommodation for the Holy Ghost. Not to say that I haven't made some effort over the years. I don't smoke (except for that time when I was visiting my friend R and I hid under the barbeque table with a packet of Rothmans, but that was all for a good cause), I don't drink (except for that time my neighbour invited me over for a Christmas tipple and I tripped over the hurricane fencing when I tried to get home), I've dabbled with vegetarianism and I even attended a Zumba class once. So I think it's fair to say that I've had good crack at using my body as a living Temple and a sacrifice to please God. The only thing I haven't tried very hard at is martyring my body and actually dying for a Godly cause. Ummm...I'm not exactly sure how that ties in with treating my body like a temple but I'm hoping that it won't become necessary to put it to the test.
Anyway, if you happen to have any thoughts on how to do this living sacrifice thing, be sure to let me know because I'd really like to get it right.