Numbers 11:25-29
The LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to Moses.
Taking some of the spirit that was on Moses,
the LORD bestowed it on the seventy elders;
and as the spirit came to rest on them, they prophesied.
Now two men, one named Eldad and the other Medad,
were not in the gathering but had been left in the camp.
They too had been on the list, but had not gone out to the tent;
yet the spirit came to rest on them also,
and they prophesied in the camp.
So, when a young man quickly told Moses,
“Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp, “
Joshua, son of Nun, who from his youth had been Moses’ aide, said,
“Moses, my lord, stop them.”
But Moses answered him,
“Are you jealous for my sake?
Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets!
Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all!“
As you just read in the above passage from the Old Testament‘s Book of Numbers 11, also known as the Fourth Book of Moses, the bestowing or conferring of the Spirit of God was a rare and special favor granted to very few.
But the Second Person of the Triune Godhead so loves us that not only did He become incarnate for the express purpose of sacrificing Himself as recompense for the cataclysmic sin of Adam and Eve so that we can be redeemed, Jesus the Christ also ensured that we would not be abandoned by His departure. As it is recounted in John 14:19, 18, 16-17, Jesus told His apostles;
“[T]the world will not see me anymore…
I will not leave you as orphans;
I will come to you.
And I will ask the Father,
and He will give you another advocate
to help you and be with you forever….”
So what do we have to do for the gift of the Spirit of God?
Acts 2:38
Then Peter said to them,
“Repent and be baptized,
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ
for the forgiveness of your sins,
and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
For the baptized, our bodies literally are the hosts — the temple — of the Holy Spirit. As St. Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 6:19:
Or do you not know that your body
is the temple of the Holy Spirit
who is in you,
whom you have from God,
and you are not your own?
We, therefore, should treat our bodies with respect by not abusing it with drugs, alcohol, gluttony and sloth, and by taking good care of it with nutritious food, exercise, rest and sleep. Most importantly, as St. Paul counsels us in Romans 6:13:
Do not let any part of your body
become an instrument of evil to serve sin.
Instead, give yourselves completely to God,
for you were dead, but now you have new life.
So use your whole body as an instrument
to do what is right for the glory of God.
Thank God for the gift of the Holy Spirit, and tell Him you love Him with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind, and with all your strength.
And may the peace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you!
~E
Thank you for that excellent reminder–we need to take care of our bodies as they are not our own.
Thank you Dr. E…having grown up a mix of Mennonite, Quaker, and Brethren/ later Methodist (Evangelical Brethren united with the Methodist when I was in my teens to form the Untied Methodists)…..THIS is one of the mainstays of my upbringing, my childhood, the “ism” with which I raised my own children. It has never failed us, though we have sometimes failed or strayed this “ism.” We are always saved by coming back to this…at any point of need. If you understand that your body is to be treated as a temple given to you freely by GOD…in the GLORY of God….then, you must take care of it as God expects…& if we fail or stray…realize that He forgives & that you have a chance to return to His path with the care of your body as His temple…at any time…It’s never too late.
Thank you for this magnificent post reminding us of our responsibility to take care of ourselves the best we can under our particular circumstances.