The girls and I were chatting last night about our bodies and how they are the temple of God, how the Holy Spirit lives in us and not in an object or building. In the middle of the conversation the Lord showed up and began to reveal to us truths that were so powerful in helping us to completely understand this concept. I just wanted to share a little of the revelation He had given us. The devil is on a mission to destroy the temple of God, the place where true worship comes from. I think it is easy for us to think that this primary attack is direct on the church, a building. But the devil realized after the resurrection of Jesus Christ that the temple where the Spirit of God would dwell was no longer an object on earth, but was rebuilt to be in the very depths of God’s people              (1 Corinthians 6:19 ; Ephesians 2:21). And the only way now to destroy that temple would be to defile it and pollute it with sin. To fill it with perversion to the point that the Holy Spirit would be drowned out.

~ I previously watched a t.v. show about two artificial intelligent computers who were fighting against each other to takeover. They were attempting to find each other’s source so that they could cut the power and completely take them out of existence. The “bad” smart computer was able to determine that the other computer was living in power lines. So it began to blowup all of the transformers to the power lines until the “good” computer was forced out and into a very small box that would hold it. While the “good” computer was not dead, it had lost all of its territory and could no longer perform at full capacity.~

What a good illustration of how the devil is slowly taking over the Holy Spirits territory and our ability to use it at full capacity. Territory is lost every time we allow his perversions into our bodies and deposited into our hearts; through the type of music we listen to, the movies and television shows we watch, the conversations we have and even the books we read. All of these things are small attacks leading to the biggest attack of all, sexual sin. The bible says in 1Corinthians 18 that “sexual immorality is a sin against your own body” that “no other sin so clearly affects the body”. Our body….the temple of God. We live in a world that is so diluted to this concept. Fornication and “shacking up” is just “a part of life”. It is just what people do now days. To date someone today means to be sleeping with them. It is the natural and most acceptable way of life. In fact it is so acceptable and natural that even believers have a hard time seeing any wrong in it. And here we are, God’s people, going to church every Sunday, proclaiming God’s victories in our lives on social media every day. And yet we are failing to guard and take care of the greatest treasure we have for God, His temple, a place where true worship comes from. If I have nothing to offer God, and let’s be honest I don’t, could I not offer Him the gift of obedience in taking care of His temple, my body. With such reverence and care as the Israelites did in taking care of the Arc of the Covenant. Doing my very best to keep it clean and holy, free from perversion and sexual immorality. I know that this type of lifestyle goes against everything that our modern society is and seems like the most unfeasible task for anyone to do. But that is nothing less than a lie of the enemy. Purity is what we are called to, and purity is what we should strive for. We should live a life of purity, and against this perverse society we should teach our children to live a life of purity. I am unwilling to accept that “this is just how things are now” or that “this is just the new normal”. Instead I am determined not to allow the devil to continue to destroy God’s temple. It is time to take a stance and start taking back territory. We must conquer our own territory, which belongs to God bought with a high price; we must honor God with our bodies.

A New Creation in Christ Jesus:

I was known for violence. Full of rage and anger. It was a personality I wore with pride. I had no fear of fighting or hitting other people. In fact, it was my natural response to anything I didn’t like or agree with, rage and violence. I became known for this, it was the very thing that defined who I was, and everyone knew it. My reputation far proceeded me. I was hard-hearted and tough. It was my way of masking the scared hurt little girl inside. But at times I could still feel and hear her. So in an attempt to make her go away, I turned to more extreme things, alcohol and drugs. Anything to make her quiet down. I gave her away in an attempt to toughen her up. But then needed more drugs and alcohol to quiet her down from the abuse. After failed attempts at suicide, she overcame me. Sitting broken and shattered she cried out for help, and He answered her. As I sat there on my knees, broken, hurt, shattered to pieces and completely exposed, He reached His hand down from heaven and he spoke to me. He told me “I love you”.  As he began to pick the broken pieces up one by one and glue them back together with his love. “I am sorry for the man who stole your purity when you were only a child, I love you”. “I am sorry for the physical and verbal abuse you endured as a child, I love you.” “I forgive you for the choices you made to cover the pain, I love you”.“I forgive you for the rage and violence towards others, I love you”. “I forgive you for turning to substances and immorality to cover the hurt, I love you”. And there I stood, complete with a new heart. A heart filled with love and compassion. A heart that knew tenderness and forgiveness. A heart that was capable of loving itself and others. So I began to live with this new heart. And from it flowed characteristics that were not natural to who I was, but were becoming natural. From this new heart I started to live a new life with better choices. A whole new creation was formed.

And then came the opposition. The people from my past who would say, “ha! We know the real you! This is just a phony. A fake that you are trying to be. We know who you really are, you cannot fool us! You are that sinful, violent angry little girl. Stop trying to pretend you are something better than you really are!” Again I heard his voice,“Don’t listen to those lies. For you are a new creation, MY creation, and I love you.”

Hi, I am Nikki, the REAL Nikki, a new creation in Christ Jesus