This morning, I find myself pondering anew the idea of being the temple of God. It is so easy to find God in nature, in a beautiful sunrise or sunset, and in images of majestic mountain ranges and sparkling bodies of water. It seems more difficult to say that I find God within me. Let me walk you through the idea from my personal experience.
There is a part of me that spends time building up my ego to hide the fact that without God, I am nothing. A part of me desires to have an identity and a sense of worth as an individual. There is this thought process that says he made me, he gave me life, and I get to live it how I want. Yes, he gave me that right, but he has a preference that I live it a different way, a more fulfilling way.
At the same time, there is a part of me that knows I am a sinner, and this part of me feels unworthy of the gift of God’s presence within me. No amount of building up my ego can erase the truth of the sinfulness that lurks behind the facade; the image that I project externally.
Neither of these “parts of me” wants to think that a God who is holy, holy, holy lives in me. He has made his home in me. By baptism, I am his temple. I am a place where God resides and where I can and should go to worship him. Still, it is something I resist, and maybe some of you are like me.
In addition to the comments above, I think it is also hard to worship the God within because there are consequences to doing so. Ezekiel tells us that God will place his Spirit within us to help us live his covenant. Other parts of Scripture build on this understanding by teaching us that the Holy Spirit will lead us to the fullness of life, which is life in the Spirit who conforms us to the crucified and risen Lord. Unfortunately, he does this, in part, through our suffering. The consequences of meeting the God within means suffering and letting go of all that is not of Him.
This really struck me in a recently read passage from a book where God told the author, “if I could bring you to myself without suffering, I would.” (He and I by Gabrielle Bossis). If we are to become all we were made to be, we have to leave behind all that is not of him, and this hurts.
Thus, it is easier to pray to an external God in gratitude for the wonderful things of this world and to ask for the things we want and think we need than it is to pray to the One who dwells within and wants to perfect us in Christ through our sufferings.
I don’t know about you, but I have yet to read of anyone who found true and lasting joy and fulfillment in this life without the power of the Holy Spirit, which required a personal relationship with him. Those relationships always included an aspect of worshiping and communing with the God who lived within. It required them to meet him in the chamber of their hearts at the core of their being, which allowed him to teach them who they were in Christ and how they were made, and we can see how all of this helped them attain true happiness in this world by being conformed to the crucified Christ. While this process hurts, it is a core part of finding true fulfillment and purpose.
Spend some time with the Holy Spirit living within you. Ask him to teach you how to adore and worship him properly. Ask him how you can cooperate with his efforts to reform you into the highest and best version of yourself, and how you can live life with him, in him, and through him. Thank him for living within your currently imperfect temple and for all the work the two of you will do in order to remodel your temple into what it was supposed to be.
In Him,
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