We read something that we all too frequently forget in 1 Corinthians 3:16, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” Paul writes further to this point in 6:19-20, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s”. God’s presence on the earth during the Old Testament was primarily at the Mercy Seat in the tabernacle, then the temple. If one wanted to approach God, it was at that location and through an intermediary, the priest. In Ezekiel 10 we read of God’s glory departing from the temple around 600 BC.

Move in history to the time of Jesus in His three year earthly ministry. During this time, the presence of God was more mobile as Jesus traveled throughout Israel bringing His light wherever He went. But as magnificent as Jesus’ earthly ministry was it was limited to where He was. Jesus said in John 14:16-17, “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He May abide with you forever - the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.” When Jesus died, was raised, then ascended to the right hand of the Father, He sent the Holy Spirit to fill the believers, first seen at Pentecost in Acts 2. God’s sphere of influence now had no limits on earth as people indwelled with the Holy Spirit filled every corner of the world.

We make a mistake whenever we minimize just what being temples of the Holy Spirit means. God is God. There is no difference in the power between Father, Son, or Spirit. We, who are in Christ, are empowered with the power of God. We read in Matthew 24:14, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.” As temples of the Holy Spirit, this is our commission from Jesus, Himself in Matthew 28:18-20. Though we have the fullness of God within us we often render ourselves impotent because rather than being vessels of His power, we stumble along using our own puny strength and intellect. Paul was so effective since he realized this, as he wrote in 1 Corinthians 3:5-7, “Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.” He goes on to write in 4:7, “For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” We are messengers, vessels, of the Holy Spirit. We are empowered to take His message in His strength to the ends of the earth. He is unlimited. All too often we put up the limits and barriers, not yielding to our true power source. May we move forward with the commission we have all received when we accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior of our lives.