Shun (sexual) immorality. Every other sin a man commits is outside the body; but the (sexually) immoral man sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
1 Corinthians 5:18-20
Judy Lash Balint
I think we often hear this verse as a threat: Don’t smoke. Eat right and exercise and keep your clothes on--OR ELSE. But what if it’s a love letter? God spent hundreds of verses describing the exact specifications of his wondrous, immaculate Temple. Here He tells you that you're just as beautiful.
Dear heart, you are not an accident. There is no part of you that is not willed–deeply, desperately desired by the God of the universe. The greatest beauty in this world is nothing compared to you. From the beginning of time, He was preparing for you.
And when he made you, he made you right.
He planned every bit of you. Every atom in your being was accounted for. You think He spent a lot of time planning the Temple? That house of stone has nothing on you, His living home, His beloved. Your proportions are just what He wanted. Your color, your shape, your hair texture have purpose and meaning, as much as any column or pomegranate or basin in the Temple.
And the result, my friend, is ineffable beauty. You are His temple, stunning and lovely. Every bit of you is covered in glory, just as the inside of the Temple was covered in gold. You are so much more than the sum of your parts. Listed out on a page, taken piece by piece, it may be easy to overlook you, easy to skim over you. But all together, you are marvelous, a wonder, a sight to behold.
You might struggle to accept the fact that you’re lovely. But beware of clinging to your self-loathing, of choosing to believe God screwed up. That even though He tells you in Scripture that every bit of the Temple is perfect and planned, and you are His temple--He’s wrong.
Hating yourself is saying that God is wrong.
But you are not your own. You were made to order, then purchased at the price of the blood of Christ. You're His beloved. God doesn’t make junk. He didn’t plan out every square cubit of the Temple down to the last talent of bronze only to lament it wasn’t decorated well. He didn’t form you in your mother’s womb to sigh over your frizzy hair and cellulite and acne-ridden skin. He made you, just as you are, on purpose. He thinks you’re stunning.
Please stop telling Him he’s wrong.
from Meg Hunter-Kilmer
From "Creation: The Basics of What Orthodox Christians Believe"
For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am wondrously made. Wonderful are your works! You know me right well; my frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance, in your book were written, every one of them, the days were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them.
Psalm 139:13-16
