Daniel 5:3-5, 26-28, 30
"So they brought in the gold goblets that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone.
Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote.
“Here is what these words mean:
Mene: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting. Peres: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.
That very night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain." Dear Lover,
These are God's words. Not my own, but I am understanding and interpreting them.
I am not my own. I was bought with a great price! The greatest, the life of Holy God above and beyond all. Greater than our small minds can comprehend.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies."
That awesome and great is God, and still he humbled himself all the way down to death on a cross, the most insane and horrific death imaginable. That sacrifice so that God could save my life.
And when I invited the Holy Spirit into my life, I was crucified with Christ so that it is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me. I am his temple. I don't want to dishonor his holy temple.
Galatians 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
I know I have done this over and over. I even know that I may again. I know I won't live in shame, because it is just adding insult to injury to not forgive myself, when He's forgiven me. A person can't walk forward in God's purpose when they're crippled over in shame. But still, I want to try to honor him.
A person should not elevate themselves to god or goddess. To say these things is to blaspheme God's mighty name. In the same way, to treat what God has given me, the temple His Spirit dwells in, as less than holy and precious...as valuable as Christ's life...is to belittle His sacrifice and elevate myself. I am trying to treat myself as precious as He says I am. I also want to treat you that way.
I know you are a man. I know this is probably going to make you run. That sucks, because I like you and wouldn't give you a shot if I didn't feel that way. Still, I would rather lose the world and gain my soul.
Matthew 16:26 "What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?"
God really is that important to me.
Unapologetically Christ's,
Sinner saved by Grace
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