Life on Loan (Friday Devotional)

“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.”

- 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

When I was growing up, no Saturday was complete without a trip to the library. Every week, my brothers and I browsed the shelves eagerly and then plopped down in a big, comfortable chair to survey that week’s bounty. After a while, Dad would let us know it was time to go, at which point we’d gather up our chosen stack of books and check them out for the next week. Checking out, reading, returning, and (for particularly lengthy stories) occasionally renewing library books was a regular part of the week; we were experienced library patrons.

So we learned early on that there was a big difference in how we were expected to treat library books compared to the books we owned. If it was one of our books, we were welcome to dog-ear pages, write our names on the inside cover, or basically do anything we wanted with it—after all, it was ours! But library books were to be treated gently, like fragile treasures. We knew never to leave them outside, to keep up with them at all times, and to handle them with the utmost care. The reason for this difference in treatment was obvious: library books didn’t belong to us.

In writing to the church in Corinth, Paul advises followers of Christ to regard our bodies in the same way. The natural tendency is to think of the body as inherently yours—you are born with it, you have it your entire life, and you don’t give it up until death. What could more obviously be your property than the one thing in life no one can take away from you?

But 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 prompts you to look at your life—not just your body, but also your thoughts, your ideas, and your dreams—from a holier perspective. Your life is not so much a right as a gift, bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ so that God might be glorified through you. Understood this way, every believer should feel a powerful sense of both responsibility and urgency—this brief life, this mortal body, these were given so that you might contribute to the eternal work of the kingdom of God.

Some approach the world with a fierce independence, wanting to live on their own terms and rely on others as little as possible. The worst thing in the world, they think, would be if they had to depend on anyone but themselves. But the believer recognizes that in an ultimate sense, we are dependent, that every person needs the grace of God in order to sustain and save them. Your entire life, from the breaths you take to the words you speak, is God’s to give and take away, and yours to use wisely. So as you work, think, interact with others, and decide how to spend your time today, may you never forget to whom you belong.