1 Cor 3:16-17 Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.
Ephesians 2:21-22 in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.
What an amazing thought that a holy and infinite God dwells within our bodies when we come to faith! This awesome God so desires to inhabit our very beings … wow!
Now imagine how God is constructing this magnificent temple of living stones, believers around the world, and fitting us together into a masterpiece—stones of every color, every size, and differing weight, fitting them TIGHTLY and perfectly together for His glory!
Imagine walking into a glorious Temple, a visual masterpiece exemplifying His temple of Living stones…and gazing at the splendor of gold, silver, and precious gems … imagine the awe of the beauty you’re taking in!
Now brace yourself and imagine a person entering this glorious place, taking a sledgehammer and smashing the walls … hitting every stone … doing all he can to desecrate and destroy all this wonder and beauty … you’d say it’s the height of insanity, a massive blasphemy against the magnificent work of the Creator!
But how often do we ourselves, as His body, pick up our hammers, big and small, and do this destructive work?
There is a proverb of Solomon: “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.” Our tongues can become “hammers” of destruction and death to His precious children, His Holy Bride, in the Temple of God, His Body.
Words can build up … and, sadly, can also destroy!
Use words not as hammers of destruction but as skillful building tools inspired by the Holy Spirit to build one another up … polishing each and every precious stone in God’s Temple. Our Lord is a builder, the Living Word who says, “Let there be! And it IS! …so let us also be aware before we open our mouths to speak, as we will be judged for every idle word! We have the words of life to speak into anyone’s life today. And “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” [Proverbs 25:11]
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy Devotions. This devotional was originally published on Worthy Devotions and was reproduced with permission.
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Throughout the United States today, everyone will be celebrating the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence — a document through which leaders of the colonies in the New World broke free from the King of England.
The Hebrew expression in this verse from Isaiah is rich with meaning. The root “nus” (from the expression “raise up a standard”) is related to or sounds like numerous words which mean “sign”, “miracle”, “to drive away”, “to flee”, “cause to disappear”, “a waving flag”. This abundance of meanings in Isaiah’s poetic style reveals the multiple dimensions of God’s revelation; in this case, the way he deals with evil. The assertion in this word is that the Spirit of YHVH will be powerfully activated when evil comes.
The word contrite in Hebrew is ‘dakah’ which means one that is crushed to pieces. Paul wrote of being a ‘living sacrifice’ holy and acceptable to God. Being a living sacrifice means we often can walk off the altar. To be a continual living sacrifice we need to renew our minds day to day!
Recently, I’ve been impressed by the Lord to address the anxieties many are feeling about the future– how to be strong in the face of the intense opposition we’ll be facing as believers. One of the founders of the modern state of Israel, David Ben-Gurion once said, “Courage is a special kind of knowledge, the knowledge of how to fear what ought to be feared and how not to fear what ought not to be feared. From this knowledge comes an inner strength that inspires us to push on in the face of great difficulty. What can seem impossible is often possible with courage.”
For a season, I worked in Washington, D.C., for one of America’s largest Christian political organizations. Sometimes I saw how politics could get ugly and, more often than not, how it changed people — not for the better…but usually for the worse!
In the mid 1850’s a troubled teenager from Northfield, Massachusetts moved to Boston to try to find work. He hadn’t gone to school beyond the fifth grade; he couldn’t spell, his grammar was awful and his manners were brash and crude. Thankfully, an uncle took him on as a shoe salesman–on condition that he be obedient and that he attend church.
Have you ever felt uneasy, unsettled or unstable? Or maybe a better question is — who hasn’t? How do we overcome these feelings?