My goal in this podcast — Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life — is to help 21st-century Christians in the always distracted digital age — to connect with God with your whole being — including your body — and to wire into your brain the reality of that embodied connection in each moment. And I think most of us as Christians are often living unconsciously anxious and tense lives with a kind of disconnection between our body and mind, and disconnection between our body and God’s Spirit. Where our “Christian faith” has become almost exclusively about certain beliefs rather than an embodied experience with God’s Spirit who is always 100% present with us and in us in the NOW.
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In previous episodes we’ve been looking at an often-repeated phrase in the Bible — The LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever.
This is one of those powerful, mind-renewing, life transforming phrases to meditate on in the Bible.
And we looked at a great image/picture in the Bible of its transforming power…
2 Chronicles 5:13–14 NIV
“The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the LORD. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the LORD and sang:
‘He is good; his love endures forever.’
Then the temple of the LORD was filled with the cloud, and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the temple of God.”
The cloud was the visible manifestation of the Holy Spirit. When the people praised God with those words, “For he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever” (ESV), THEN God’s Spirit filled the temple with the glory of his presence.
“Then the temple of the LORD was filled with the cloud, and…the glory of the LORD filled the temple of God.”
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:19…
“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you.”
I think Paul is thinking of this image in 2 Chronicles 5 when he writes…
Ephesians 5:18 NIV
“…Be filled with the Spirit.”
So just as the Spirit of God filled the temple with God’s presence and glory, so too the Spirit fills us — our body — with his presence and glory when we are “filled with the Spirit.”
This is a powerful image/picture God’s Spirit is giving you to use your biblically guided imagination to experience this unseen reality! Your body is a physical temple of God’s Holy Spirit. He is IN your body. This is a mystery we’re not going to fully understand, and we don’t have to. But we can still experience it by using the power of our God-given imagination in order to envision it in some way. So envision it now and feel this image into your body — God’s Holy Spirit filling your entire body as his holy temple with the glory of his presence. Feel this image into your entire body by imaging every cell in your body being filled with the glory of God’s presence and power.
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Our audio engineer is Diego Huaman.
This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.