1 Corinthians 3:16-17

"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."
1 Corinthians 3:16-17


This scripture is really interesting in a lot of different ways, but today I want to focus on one of the miraculous things that I see here... that the Spirit of God dwelleth in us.  That we are, literally, the temple of God.  Someone in church today used the analogy of a seed... you plant an apple seed, what do you get... an apple tree.  You don't grow a plum tree from an apple seed, and you are definitely not going to get a zebra or a hippopotamus. :)  An apple seed grows apples.  Pretty clear.  But think about it in terms of who we are.  We are children of _God_.  We have the seeds of Godhood inside of us, and if we grow, we will grow into Gods.  So, of *course* the Spirit of God dwelleth in us... of *course* we are temples... we are seeds that, if nurtured, will become incredible, eternal beings... We can choose to grow or not to grow, but we can't choose to become apples, or zebras... or anything else but Gods.  Think of the amazing potential that we all have, and all it needs are some good nutrients, some sunlight... good things.  When we take bad things into ourselves, we stunt our growth, and disrespect the Spirit that resides there.  Certain things help us to grow, and certain things don't.  We don't get to choose what helps and what hurts... it's the nature of the seed.  if you pour tar and pesticide on it, it isn't going to grow very well.  What we can do is listen to someone who knows seeds, and feed ourselves on sunlight and pure water and everything good that we can find.  I'm not just talking Word of Wisdom here, though that is a definite aspect.  I am talking everything... conversation, music, books, movies, places, people.  That incredible Spirit inside of us knows what helps us to grow and what stunts our growth... and we need to listen.  Find good books to read, good places to be... good people to hang out with.  We need to nourish our souls... so that we can grow, and flourish in becoming what we were *always* meant to be.  So, sometimes we have to accept the fact that, no matter how much we want it, we can't be zebras.  We can't be apples, and we can't be black plastic garbage bags.  ... but try not to be too disappointed.  what we can do is stop working so hard to become something else, and choose to grow as fast and furiously as possible, into something that we *can* become.  None of us are weeds in the garden of the Lord.  With God's help, our temples will be clean, and will be fitting abodes for the amazing spirits that we are.