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I remember a few years back, in the summer of 2020 feeling the need to get away on a little motorcycle trip. It was the preliminary stages of the covid crisis with a lot of uncertainty and confusion including the actions taken that were to mitigate the spread of the virus.
The time came when the authorities claimed it would be wise to cancel church services and other community events to minimize personal contact that could potentially spread the virus. As I left on my short get-away, I felt somewhat depressed and discouraged. As most of my solo motorcycle trips, I spent a lot of time thinking, pondering and reflecting. It usually leads to some conversation time with my Heavenly Father as I ride. I recall questioning the covid situation and all the ramifications that went along with it. I never actually had any real sense of fear regarding contracting the virus or for my life. It was just weeks before it all hit the fan that I had been reading Psalm 139 in my Bible and verse 16 had really grabbed my attention. The verse states that, “God saw my unformed body, all the days ordained for me were written in His book before one of them came to be” I had already grasped the reality that God, in His supremacy had a plan for my life, He knew the span of my life and nothing would change that realty, no, not even the coronavirus.
So, although I had no fear for my physical future, I was struggling with the uncertainty of life in the future, the changes, restrictions and tightening of our personal freedoms. I was living the age-old adage warning, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone! As I rode through the communities on route, I began to notice the number of church buildings that graced each settlement. I was encouraged to see how many of the structures seemed to stand tall. Some church buildings were the highest point of the village or town, as if to proclaim the place of top priority to all who resided in their shadow.
It struck me how those who settled this land used their limited resources to construct a place to gather and worship their God. These churches represented different denominations but all shared a single common theme that seems to have been lost over time. We are accountable to God Almighty and we are to love and encourage each other under His Authority and for His glory.
I also noted that many of the church buildings were well maintained and still utilized. However, some of the structures were abandoned and in disrepair. Some were even on the verge of collapse and were simply a memorial of what once had been now abandoned, empty and inactive.
In 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 we are reminded that when we accept Christ as our Savior, we become the temple or dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. It reads, “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have received from God? You are not your own, you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God with your bodies.”
Our churches represent places of corporate worship but 1 Corinthians tells us that true worship begins within. Our heart is the temple where the Holy Spirit resides when we proclaim faith in Christ. What’s the condition of your temple? Is it active and well maintained? Is it truly a place suitable for the Spirit of God or is it in disrepair, abandoned and on the verge of collapse, merely a memorial of what once was? Are we honoring God with our bodies including our thoughts and motives?
Ephesians 4:30 warns us “not to grieve the Holy Spirit by whom we were sealed and marked for the day of redemption”
The Holy Spirit’s dwelling should be representative of the name He bears. To keep our hearts suitable, we need to practice confession, keeping short accounts with our Lord asking Him to forgive our sins. We need to guard what we allow into our lives. 1 Peter 1:16 compels us to “consecrate ourselves and be holy for God is holy and not to defile ourselves”
Many of the church buildings I saw had a steeple or cross to help identify them as Christian places of worship. The purpose of the church steeple was to draw our gaze upward to the Savior. The cross, of course, is core to the Christian faith. In Galatians 6:14 Paul proclaims that God forbid that he, Paul, should do anything but for the sake of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Do we, as the temple of the Holy Spirit, draw the gaze of those who see us, upward to our Lord? Do we represent the work of the cross of Christ even by the way we live?
In closing I would like to share Paul’s prayer for the Ephesian church found in Ephesians 3:16-19, “I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together withal the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
May God bless you as you seek to honor Him with your life.
-Harlan Block