The Temple

"Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? ¹⁷ If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are."  1 Corinthians 3:16-17

I had to look up the word "defiles" this morning.  I wanted to see if there was anything special about the definition of it.  There wasn't, but this is what the dictionary says it means:" to violate the sanctity of, to corrupt the purity or perfection of, to make physically unclean especially with something unpleasant or contaminating, and to make unclean or impure."  You know, these verses are some of the very first I remember being used often in church when I was a teenager.  It was used frequently in discussions of why not to use drugs or alcohol.  Frequently! In fact, it's still used today for the exact same thing, but I think we're doing these verses a great disservice if we stop there with the things that we all know are not particularly good for our body.

I mean, what about really watching what we eat?  I'm not even talking about eating too much- in the area of gluttony.  I'm also not talking about following some kind of Biblical diet, like keeping kosher or eating as Daniel did, or even John the Baptist (heaven forbid!).  But I'm talking about physically making our bodies unclean by contaminating it with fake food and chemicals.  I certainly don't think this is an absolute for living a good Christian life, but it certainly is something to pay attention to, because when we consume these foods that our body can't process, we're doing it great harm, and we're chipping away at the very foundations of our temple, making it weak and unable to resist attacks of disease and sickness.

God gave us such an amazing abundance of food to sustain our bodies.  He really outdid Himself with the variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs and grains alone, but then you throw into the mix the wonderful animal by-products of milk and eggs, and then the variety of animals He also gave us for eating, and WOW!  The possibilities with all these wonderful creations is endless.  So why is it that we are rushing out in droves to the grocery store to pick up those dairy products filled with chemicals?  Wonder what I'm talking about?  Check out that low-fat sour cream the next time you pick it up.  Read the ingredients- how many can you even pronounce, let alone know what they are?   Real sour cream has cultured milk in it.  God gave us perfect food for our bodies in the first place- of course He did!  He didn't create cows that give milk, thinking that some day man would make it even better by taking out the fat.  If God thought that dairy fat was bad for us in the first place, don't you think He could have made a fat-free cow in the first place?  Think about that.  Seriously think about that.

There are so many diseases, food allergies and intolerances on the rise, and I really think it's because we're defiling our temples with fake food.   Now, I'm not saying we all need to move out to the country, get a couple of cows, chickens and plant a few acres of garden, but I am saying that as keepers of these incredible temples, we need to pay more attention to what we put into it.   Even more so, I think that as parents, we should be held even more accountable if we corrupt our children's bodies by putting garbage into them as well.  Oh, I know it happens, that's for sure.  No one laments the introduction of chicken nuggets to my kids more than I.  If they'd never had one to begin with, they'd never want to eat them.   I can't go back and change that, but what I can do, is make changes now.  I can feed them real food, and I can insist, when we go cereal shopping, that we find the cereals that are not full of chemicals and added fake sugars and dyes that our bodies really cannot process. 


Just look above at what this verse says about people who defile their temple- it literally says that God will destroy him!  ""If ANYONE defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him."  WE are the temples of God, and we need to pay better attention to our temples.  We need to watch very much what we put into them, because we really do need food to survive- we can only go a handful of days without sustenance.  And here's something else to think about.  The devil also knows that we need food to survive.  He knows this as much as he knows we need air to breathe.   If the devil knows that we need food to survive, how delighted do you think he is to see us stuffing our face with all this fake food filled with chemicals and carcinogens that's only going to give us cancer down the road?  I think we are being naive if we think our enemy won't try and use food to get our bodies to shut down.   Of course he will, he comes only to steal, kill and destroy, and what better way than to try and affect our bodies by the very thing it needs to function from day to day.

I know I've decided to change our ways drastically.  We go out to eat so seldom now, because I know that what we get to eat when we're out is not honoring to our temples.  And when I am at home, I cook almost  everything from scratch, using only those canned goods and foods that are not full of chemicals, dyes, and other unreal food.   It probably makes my kids mad, to be honest.  Sometimes they'll ask for chicken nuggets, and I'll buy hormone free chicken breasts and make my own breaded chicken strips.  They're tasty, but not the chemical filled treats they were hoping for.   But I refuse to let the devil cause us to destroy our temples by enticing us with fake food.  He will not win that one, and it is my prayer today that the more people I can share this with, the more people will realize that the things they are putting in their mouths are the very things the devil hopes will ruin their physical bodies and steal their very lives from them and their children.  He will not succeed.