Carina Francke

1 Corinthians 3:16: "Don’t you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?

Yesterday we discovered that God chooses to live in our darkness, thus forcing the darkness out. You see, we have been created to be a people for Him; we have been bought to be His dwelling place - irrespective of our condition on the in- or outside. But He will never enter by force and merely squat in your house. No, He waits for each and every individual to unlock the door and invite Him in personally, so that He can recreate a mere house into a home.

When He settles in, there is but one requirement - your faith in Him. His love for you and His indwelling, though, does not permit Him to leave you in the condition He found you.

He drives out the darkness in your life and His light becomes the light you reflect. But that's not all, He gives you the Holy Spirit as Helper alongside you to enable you to truly live, and then He begins a lifelong renovation, no, renewing process in your life.  You are after all His temple!  Remember though,  your cooperation is necessary to complete each phase of construction, and that involvesyour willingness to listen, your obedience when He whispers in your ear and your action on what He wants you to do.

Hopefully your love for Him - that love, “God has poured out into your heart by the Holy Spirit whom He has given us" (Rom 5:5) is so ablaze, that you willingly cooperate.

Rest assured, this renewal or cleaning up of His home does not demand obedience to a set of rules and laws but it requires that your "faith expresses itself in love." (Gal 5:6). Are you willing to express your love for God and people in deeds?

Prayer: Father, what an awe-inspiringreality that an ordinary, mortal human-being like me is Your temple. May my willingness to cooperate never be restricted by my own desires and willfulness. Amen.