This is the weekly companion to the weekend’s message, made to spend time with all week. It follows a simple five-part rhythm: a recap of what we heard, the central thought and scripture, a practice for the week, daily scripture and reflection, and a closing prayer.
Recap
Pastor Jon called this the most difficult message of the series to preach. Our bodies haven’t changed nearly as fast as the world around them. A hundred years ago, a meal took real work to grow, harvest, and prepare, and nobody took a glowing screen to bed. Now we live in a world engineered to make everything we crave easier to access and harder to resist: food, comfort, entertainment, sexual gratification, convenience, stimulation. And every day we see filtered, edited versions of other people’s bodies. Some of us neglect our bodies. Others obsess over them.
So Pastor Jon asked: if Paul says my body is a temple, how did God expect His temple to be treated? It was designed down to the details. It had to be tended, with lamps trimmed, fresh wood laid on the altar every morning, and damage repaired. It was guarded at the doors. It was purified when things got in that didn’t belong. Sacred doesn’t mean maintenance-free. All of it existed for the presence of God.
The story doesn’t end with a well-kept temple, though. When it fell, God’s people came home to rubble, and they rebuilt what the enemy had destroyed. Jesus carried that story into His own body. He is the true temple, destroyed and raised on the third day, and the same Spirit who raised Him lives in us. That means your temple is repairable too. Fittingly, we closed the weekend at the Lord’s Table, receiving the body given for us.
Central Thought & Scripture
“Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20, NLT)
Your body is a temple, and the glory of a temple is the presence of the One who lives in it. That is why God’s temple was tended, guarded, and purified, and it is why we steward our bodies too: for the sake of the presence. The goal is a temple available to God, one that will last, one that can stand the test of time and still be there to hold your grandchildren. And if your temple has been neglected or damaged, the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you. Your temple is repairable. God designed it to be rebuilt.
Practice for the Week
Pastor Jon didn’t hand us a plan this week. He showed us what the Bible says and left the specifics to each of us and the Holy Spirit. So the practice is an offering and a question.
Each morning, before the day starts making its claims on you, offer your body to God as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1). The prayer can be as simple as this: God, this body belongs to You. I offer it to You today.
Then ask the Holy Spirit one of three questions:
● What needs to be tended?
● What needs to be guarded?
● What needs to be purified?
Write down whatever comes to mind. When He shows you something, take one small step toward it that day.
For some of us, faithfulness will mean removing something. For others, it will mean the maintenance we’ve been putting off: sleep, a doctor’s appointment, slowing down, getting help. Even Jesus slept, ate, withdrew, and stopped.
Daily Scripture & Reflection
Set aside some time each day to pray with these Scriptures. Bring your journal and a pen. Begin with a few quiet moments to become aware of God’s presence and invite the Holy Spirit to guide you. Read the day’s Scripture slowly, a few times, and notice what stands out. Read the reflection question and jot down your answer, no need to be elaborate, just a quick note, along with anything else that comes to you. When you finish, look back over what you wrote. Does anything stand out? Does anything call for action? Thank God for being with you and speaking to you, then close with the Lord’s Prayer. All of this fits in about 10 to 15 minutes.
Day 1: Psalm 139:13-16
David received the plans for the temple in writing from the hand of the Lord, every room and courtyard and lampstand accounted for. The same David wrote this psalm about another building God designed: you. The same care that measured the gold for the lampstands shaped your inmost parts in the womb and recorded your days before one of them began. You were built on purpose, with purpose. What would change this week if you received your body as something God made on purpose?
Day 2: Exodus 27:20-21
The lamp in the Tabernacle was meant to burn continually, and that meant someone had to tend it every evening and every morning. Nothing about its holiness made the oil refill itself. We can run on too little sleep, constant stress, and an unsustainable pace for a while, and some of us have confused being spiritual with being limitless. But eventually the body keeps score. Fatigue, tension, and pain are its way of saying it needs to be tended. What you value, you tend to. What maintenance have you been putting off?
Day 3: 2 Chronicles 29:3-5, 15-16
Hezekiah’s first act as king was to reopen the doors of the temple and start carrying things out. The priests brought everything defiled into the courtyard, and the Levites hauled it all the way to the Kidron Valley. It took work, and it took the will to look at what had been allowed inside. Sometimes stewardship means adding something. Sometimes it means removing something. What is sitting in your temple that doesn’t belong there, and what would it take to carry it out?
Day 4: 1 Corinthians 6:15-20
The passage that calls your body a temple is a passage about sexuality. For Paul, what we do with our bodies sexually reaches all the way to our union with Christ, because the body joined to Him is His. Modesty is knowing who your temple belongs to, and boundaries are evidence of strength and value. Where is the Holy Spirit asking you to put a gate in place? And if you carry regret here, read on to Day 6.
Day 5: 1 Kings 8:10-11
When the cloud filled Solomon’s temple, the priests couldn’t even continue their work. All the gold and craftsmanship had been leading to that moment, and it was the presence of God that made the place glorious. The same Spirit lives in you. That frees us from stewarding our bodies for the approval of a world full of filtered, edited bodies. We tend the temple for the sake of the One who dwells in it, and a body that is aging, hurting, or carrying limitations is no less His dwelling place. How does that change the way you see your own body, or someone else’s?
Day 6: Romans 8:9-11
When God’s people came home from exile, they found rubble. They couldn’t undo what had happened, but they could decide what they would do next, and they rebuilt what the enemy had destroyed. Jesus spoke of His own body as a temple that would be destroyed and raised in three days, and it was. Paul says the Spirit who did that lives in you. Whether in this life or the next, your temple will be rebuilt. Where do you need to stop believing the damage is final, and begin rebuilding with the Spirit’s help?
Prayer
Father, You designed this body with care, and You bought it at a high price through Your Son, whose body was given for me. It does not belong to me. Thank You that Your Spirit has made His home in me, in a body that is aging, sometimes hurting, and carrying limits You already know. Forgive me for the ways I have neglected it, left its gates unguarded, or let in what doesn’t belong. I offer it to You again through Jesus, the true temple, torn down and raised up on the third day. By the same Spirit who raised Him from the dead, show me what needs to be tended, what needs to be guarded, and what needs to be purified, and give me grace to begin, and inspire in me the hope that my body shall be made new and raised again. In Jesus’ name, amen.
The Lord’s Prayer (traditional)
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.
