1 Corinthians 3:16

1 Corinthians 3:16 says, Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?  Paul declares that the bodies of the followers of Christ are temples of God.  This is true because the Holy Spirit dwells in us.  So the question then becomes how well do we care for God's temple, or our bodies.  This is more than just a question of how we physically care for our bodies, but how we spiritually care for them as well.  Glorifying God should be our first priority in everything we do.  We should not defile His temple, which is our body, as Paul states here.  Verse seventeen adds, If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. Again, I do not believe that as followers of Christ we will ever lose our salvation, but we may have our witness for Christ destroyed if we defile God's temple, our bodies.  We often wonder what motivates people who destroy church buildings, but we need to be even more concerned at Christians who do things that defile their bodies.  This is not only the things that we do, but also the things that we think. There is no room for envy, strife, self-pride or hatred in the body of Christ.  Verse eighteen continues, Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.  As Paul said, there is no way to follow God through the wisdom of the world. We can only follow God through faith in what the world sees as the foolishness of the cross. Verse nineteen states, For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.  Real wisdom comes only from God.  Man may be smart enough to split an atom and destroy everything around it, but man cannot keep an atom together and cause it to function for good in the world.  Man has yet to create anything from nothing, so God sees the foolishness of our wisdom.  Verse twenty adds, And again, The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. Paul states that God knows the thoughts of the wise, and that their thoughts are vain, or amount to nothing.  If God declares the thoughts of the wise to amount to nothing, then think of how little the thoughts of the foolish amount to. We need to remember that God judges not only our actions, but also our thoughts behind those actions.  For that reason, we must keep God's will at the center of our thoughts.  Verse twenty-one continues, Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours;  I believe Paul is warning us to never place any person in a position that allows us to view them as infallible.  We are not to glorify anyone.  There is a description today of a person being a teen idol, but we are to let no one become an idol to us.  Verse twenty-two says, Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;  Paul was again telling those early Christians that it did not matter who brought the gospel to them, only that they had believed. When they did believe, they all were God's.  This is the message for us today as well.  Verse twenty-three adds, And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.  We are God's through the sacrifice of Christ and by no other method. This is God's only plan for salvation.