Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.

--Parallel verses:
‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭2‬:‭4‬-‭10‬
As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and, “A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

It is interesting to think that we are God‘s temple. What does this look like for us? What does it mean to live as a temple?

I think one of the best passages that talks about how we live like a temple is in I Peter (our parallel verses). Peter describes what it looks like to live as the Church of Christ, the temple of God.

First, we must come to Jesus. There is no way to enter into the inner workings of the temple of God as a member of the church unless we come to Jesus first. What does this look like? It means we come to him with a humble heart, asking forgiveness for our sins, admitting our need for a savior and asking him to come into our lives as Lord over all the decisions we make. We must desire to obey him, because we love him.

As we come to Jesus and invite him in, we start to become like him. He builds us into his spiritual house, his temple, which is the Church universal. Jesus Christ himself is the cornerstone and we are living stones built together to honor God.

For those of us who embrace Jesus, the cornerstone is what we build our lives on. But for those who reject him, the cornerstone of the church, he becomes a stumbling block for them. They stumble over the cornerstone because, in their sin, they cannot see clearly what is right. And they disobey God and his rules and law and order. They disobey his commands to love others above themselves.

However, we, the church, are called and commissioned to be a people of God. What does this look like? It looks like: Being chosen, grafted into a royal family, being purified into a holy nation, gaining the status of God’s special possession, becoming their recipients of mercy, and being labeled “the people of God“.

We were pulled out of darkness into the marvelous light of our Savior Jesus Christ! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! We have been redeemed and reconciled to him.

Father God, thank you for my status as a member of the temple of God, your holy people, and your special possession. Help me keep in the forefront of my mind who I am and whose I am. May you continue to transform my mind and my heart to become more like that of my Savior’s, Jesus Christ.