_THE TEMPLE OF THE BODY_
ROMANS xii. 1-9.
The Lord wants my body. He needs its members as ministers of
righteousness. He would work in the world through my brain, and eyes, and
ears, and lips, and hands, and feet.
And the Lord wants my body as "_a living_ sacrifice." He asks for it when
it is thoroughly alive! We so often deny the Lord our bodies until they
are infirm and sickly, and sometimes we do not offer them to Him until
they are quite "worn out." It is infinitely better to offer them even then
than never to offer them at all. But it is best of all to offer our bodies
to our Lord when they are strong, and vigorous, and serviceable, and when
they can be used in the strenuous places of the field.
And so let me appoint a daily consecration service, and let me every
morning present my body "a living sacrifice" unto God. Let me regard it as
a most holy possession, and let me keep it clean. Let me recoil from all
abuse of it--from all gluttony, and intemperance, and "riotous living."
Let me look upon my body as a church, and let the service of consecration
continue all day long. "Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of
the Holy Spirit?"