Daily Devotions
Your Body Is the Temple of God
Reading for April 28th: 2 Kings 20-22
And the carved image of Asherah that he had made to set in the house of which the LORD said to David and to Solomon his son, "In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name forever..."
2 Kings 21:7
The list of Manasseh's iniquities is breathtaking:
- He rebuilt the high places (v 3).
- He erected altars to the Baals (v 3).
- He built altars in the house of the LORD (v 4).
- He built altars for the hosts of heaven in the two courts of the Temple (v 5).
- He sacrificed his son to false gods (v 56.
- He used fortune-tellers, omens, sorcery, mediums, and necromancers (v 6).
Someone commented that you would have to be a student of the Bible to be this bad. It's as if Manasseh took the book of the Law and checked off all the evil he could commit against God.
What stands out among all the things Manasseh did, however, was the fact that he put that image of Asherah in the house of the LORD. This is why it was said that Manasseh was "more evil" than the Amorites. The nations whom God had driven out before them did not have the temple. Thus, they did not have the capacity to offend God as much as Manasseh did. He was able take this abominable worship into the temple and do this in the LORD's presence.
We have a position before the LORD that is more unique than Manasseh's. Because of that we have the ability to do even more evil than he did. Consider this warning from Paul...
"Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, "The two will become one flesh." But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?" (1 Cor 6:16-19)
Father, forgive us for offending your holy presence within us by defiling our bodies the way we do. Give us eyes to see the reality of what our bodies truly are.
