A Self-Image Attached to GodSample

God With Us

The word temple gets thrown around a lot in the Christian culture in reference to our bodies. It has often been misused as an excuse to obsess over our bodies. The Enemy would like us to become so obsessed with looking down at our bodies that we forget to look up at Jesus.

Biblical Greek offers two words for temple: naos and hieron. Hieron would designate the outer court and the temple proper, whereas naos refers to the inner sanctuary of the temple known as the Most Holy Place, or the Holy of Holies. This is the place where the ark of the Lord resided.

A thick, heavy curtain, or veil, separated the Most Holy Place—which housed the Spirit of God—from the Holy Place. Only once a year was a high priest allowed to enter the Most Holy Place to offer a blood sacrifice. This is significant because of what our great high priest, Jesus, did on the cross. When the curtain tore in the temple as Jesus died, a shift took place in the supernatural realm. With the death of Christ, we were given access to the presence of God. In this moment, the temple became more than just a physical building—our living, breathing bodies became God’s temples!

In fact, the word naos, indicating the holiest place, appears in Paul’s teachings six times when referring to the body as the temple. We see this term used in reference to both an individual body and the church body. We house the Spirit of God everywhere we go. This, my friends, is why the Enemy’s attack on our bodies is so strong.

This battle cannot be won with weapons of weight loss, perfection, or a new gadget. We win this body image battle by putting on the full armor of God: the belt of truth buckled around our waists, the breastplate of righteousness in place, our feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit. Put on your armor, my friends. This is war.

Reflect on how you might think about your body differently if you make room for awareness that the Holy Spirit is within your body, with you wherever you go. Does this revelation shift your perspective from striving to resting and rejoicing?