Mixed Feelings about the Temple

But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers' houses, the old men that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy:

Ezra 3:12

When you restore something old and see the finished product, excitement arises. Likewise, the aged men of the exiled Israelites envisioned the ancient Temple as they laid the foundation to restore it. So their emotions burst from crying to rejoicing when they saw only the laid foundation. I asked myself what lesson can believers of the 21st century learned from this emotional event.

Remember, the Temple represented the return of God (Yahweh) to Jerusalem. This Temple was the sacred dwelling place on Earth for Yahweh's presence. Yet, for New Testament believers, the Temple consists of each individual's body rather than a stand-alone building. Even Apostle Paul made this argument to the believers at Corinth when he stated the following:

What? Know ye not that your body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

(I Corinthians 6:19-20)

This profound revelation recognizes two factors: 1) God the Holy Spirit resides in each believer instead of a building, and 2) since the cost of this relocation occurred centuries ago, the result produces glorification. Did you know the following about your body due to this glorification?

Your nose has the capability of remembering 50,000 different scents. We replace our taste buds every ten days. Your body sheds about 600,000 particles of skin every hour. There are 100,000 miles of blood vessels in an adult human body. Our ears and nose never stop growing.

While awake, the human brain produces enough electricity to power a light bulb. Human bones are ounce-for-ounce stronger than steel, though they contain 31 percent water. The human eye can distinguish about 10 million different colors. If uncoiled, the DNA in all the cells in your body would stretch 10 billion miles.

Your brain uses 20 percent of your body's total oxygen and blood. In a lifetime, your brain's long-term memory can hold as many as one quadrillion (one million billion) separate bits of information.

Your heart will pump nearly 1.5 million barrels of blood during your lifetime, enough to fill 200 train tank cars. When you take one step, you are using up to 200 muscles. There are over 650 named skeletal muscles in the human body (some figures suggest as many as 840).

Source: http://www.factslides.com/s-Your-Body

Your body is a glorified temple created for God's glory. Therefore, as Godly stewards, we should take excellent care of our bodies and always use them for God's purpose. If you see yourself as this magnificent Temple of God, like the aged men of Israel, you too will burst with both weeping and rejoicing. This realization of a glorified body should lead to mixed emotions as we evaluate whether we allow our bodies to express such glorification as the Temple of God.