Temple Maintenance

TEMPLE MAINTENANCE

First let me say I am not talking about some false religion's building, nor the building of ancient Christian days, but rather, I'm talking about YOU!  Your body is a temple, did you know that?  "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?  If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." (1 Cor. 3:16 - 17)  What things you do to your body, He expects you to take good care of it; not defile it, nor destroy it, nor use it for unholy, unChristian purposes.  We may have practiced these things when we were in unbelief.  But do we now?
While we were unsaved, we didn't deal with the temple in the way we should have.  We most certainly were the loose bull in a china store.  We were separated FROM God; once saved, we are required to be separated TO God.  "For I am the LORD your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." (Lev. 11:44)  So we need to sanctify ourselves, or, make ourselves holy.  This passage gives us one facet of being holy, not defiling ourselves with creeping things.  For the unsaved, it's gabage in, garbage out.  For the saved, it's wholesome and holy things in, wholesome and holy things out.  What other ways can we sanctify ourselves to God?

"Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God.  And ye shall keep My statutes, and do them: I am the LORD which sanctify you." (Lev. 20:7 - 8)  "Likewise shalt thou do with thine oxen, and with thy sheep: seven days it shall be with his dam; on the eighth day thou shalt give it Me.  And ye shall be holy men unto Me: neither shall ye eat any flesh that is torn of beasts in the field; ye shall cast it to the dogs." (Exod. 22:30 - 31)  See these two instances where obedience makes us holy, because we have set ourselves apart to God from the world?  God wants us to be holy as a part of temple maintenance.  After all, would we expect a holy God to take up residence in a defiled temple?  Certainly not!

Tattoos and piercings are a common worldly practice these days, but how is this temple maintenance?  "Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD." (Lev. 19:28)  While the piercings everywhere on peoples bodies is a vanity thing, it is clear that tattoos are marks on the body, and thus violates this request from God!

Can we get help with temple maintenance?  Jesus said so.  "Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.  The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak." (Mark 14:38)  We know our flesh is weak, but we can pray to God for help; we know that He is faithful in all things to we who believe on Him!  Understand that the works of the flesh are the things which defile our temple, and the fruit of the Spirit are the things which maintain our holiness for cleanliness of our temple that we would have our God reside in!  So what are the works of the flesh?  "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." (Gal. 5:19 - 21)  For those who need help with some of these words, sedition is rebellion, as in against authority, variance is a form of strife, emulations are jealousies, lasciviousness is lewdness, and heresy is a controversial dissention against accepted Christian dogma.

Now the fruit of the Spirit are things which lend to holiness; "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.  And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.  If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." (Gal. 5:22 - 25)  If we have all these fruits, we are of no offense, so we are in complete obedience each moment we walk this way.  God knows we are human, so maintenance of this degree is impossible to sustain until our last breath, of course, but it is still a worthy level of holines to strive for as long as you can maintain it!

So what else contributes to temple maintenance?  Would you believe denial?  Yes, denial of sustenance; fasting!  "And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed." (Acts 14:23)  Now some of us can only fast for so long, especially the diabetic.  Nevertheless, fasting lends to spirituality, because it is a way of denying self and rejecting the world.  Consider this next passage of Scripture.  Christ told His disciples they could not cast out a particular demon because it required much prayer and fasting; "And when He was come into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, Why could not we cast him out?  And He said unto them, 'This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.'" (Mark 9:28 - 29)  Christ instructed that fasting lent to power over certain demons.  He was exemplary of fasting Himself before His temptations by Satan in the desert as well; "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.  And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward an hungred." (Matt. 4:1 - 2)  Being our holy Lord, He certainly took His human frame to the limits of its endurance, you would think, to fast for so many days, and with such a length of fasting, He resisted all the temptations of Satan with quotes of Scripture against each temptation.  Like another reference to fasting being something holy men do?  "As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, 'Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.'  And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away." (Acts 13:2 - 3)  See how these men made themselves holy so as to minister to the Lord through fasting?

I have another ensample of that prior statement I gave of "garbage in, garbage out", and "wholesome and holy things in and out".  "That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.  Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.  Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil.  Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.  Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.  And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.  Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." (Eph. 4:22 - 32)  By now it has become clear that temple maintenance is sustaining as long as humanly able a state of holiness, of both the mind and the body.  That term "corrupt communication" covers anything unholy that comes out of your mouth.  "Evil speaking" also covers a wide range of verbage that one might allow to slip off the tongue.  Nasty words, hurtful words, lies of all kinds...these are examples of a defiled temple!  These sins come from within the body, but carnality is external sinfulness.  "Flee fornication.  Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body." (1 Cor. 6:18)  By this we have an example of defiling our temple from without.

Our Lord gave ensample also of the difference between a defiled and a holy temple as through the eyes; "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.  The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.  But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.  If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" (Matt. 6:19 - 23)  "No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light.  The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.  Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness.  If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light." (Luke 11:33 - 36)  If one be unsaved, they are full of darkness, their temple is defiled.  They do no maintenance of their temple, for they do not understand that their body is meant to be the temple of God.  So they trash their temple; God is not in them.  Those who are saved, however, are lit with the Spirit of God, and strive to be holy and obedient, that their temple be maintained, and their whole body be full of light, the light of God!  "According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.  And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.  For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." (2 Pet. 1:3 - 8)

We also have this promise, that God will always be with us who believe and work to keep our temple holy; "Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for He hath said, 'I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.'  So that we may boldly say, 'The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.'" (Heb. 13:5 - 6)  We can depend on our faithful Jesus to help us be like Him; He is there to ask always when we think of striving to be like Him; and trying to be like Him is temple maintenance, indeed!