Temple

"Dear brothers and sisters, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen."

- Apostle Paul, Galatians 6:18

"What matters, what Heaven desires and Hell fears, is precisely that further step, out of our depth, out of our control."

- C.S. Lewis

A while back I was watching a ballgame that I had previously recorded with someone who had already seen the game. Big mistake! Because even if they don't tell you the outcome of the game… you can tell. When the team they're rooting for is down, they're cool as a cucumber. They're not upset, they're not worried or anxious or nervous. Meanwhile, I'm jumping up and down, yelling at the referee, heart pounding, veins bulging...and he's smiling telling me to relax. The difference, of course, is that he knows how the game ends.

In a world that is often beyond our control, it can make a difference for you and for me if we know how the game ends. It can bring an other-worldly calm into today's out-of-our-hands circumstances. In the very last verse of Paul's letter to the Galatians, he is praying that the grace Jesus, gifted us from the cross that placed us in a forever relationship with the God who supremely wins in the end, would be the truth that defines our reality.

You may not know how the situation you're in today will turn out, but you are in relationship with the God who does… and He loves you! His control brings, not just a calm to my spirit, but also an elevated sense of purpose to my choices.

In another passage, Paul speaks about us as "Temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you..." (1 Corinthians 6:19)

A temple is a holy place where God meets with us… where heaven and earth meet. The meaning is that we are not just a collection of urges and desires but we are human beings in whom the God of heaven and earth resides.

Shouldn't that result in controlled choices that reflect whose I am in an out-of-control world?

Pastor Harry

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