1 Corinthians 3:16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your
midst?
Don’t you know?
Thanks Paul. Don’t you know you are God’s temple. Isn’t it amazing that we as humans can hear something over and over again and not hear it clearly. We may be taught math everyday of school and still not understand it. This leads to teachers, parents and friends to say, “Don’t you know…”. It can be frustrating when people don’t understand things that are perfectly clear to us. I think in this verse Paul was having one of those moments with the Corinthians (and probably me – though he didn’t know that at the time). He feels like it is really clear, but the people of Corinthians remember it one minute and the next they are behaving like it isn’t true.
You yourselves are God’s temple
God’s temple. I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty important. It’s hard for me to actually value myself enough to think of myself as God’s temple. But God knows me better than I know myself. He values me and considers me His temple. If God dwells in me, what does that mean for who I am. If God were dwelling in my house (physically), would I not work to make sure He had what he needed? Wouldn’t I want to keep out things that would make my house less appealing? I would put clean sheets on the bed, use air freshener and clean the bathrooms. I would want to get rid of every trace of dirt that I could. Not because God was going to judge my home or look down on it, but because I want it to be a place worthy of Him.
So too, I should do this in my heart. I should be paying attention to my Godly Guest. I should clean out the cobwebs, dust and remove anything that isn’t needed so it doesn’t get in the way of my spending time with the Guest.
God’s Spirit dwells in your midst
God is... 