Leave Your Sledgehammers Home!

1 Cor 3:16-17 Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.

Ephesians 2:21-22 in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

What an amazing thought that a holy and infinite God dwells within our bodies when we come to faith! This awesome God so desires to inhabit our very beings ... wow!

Now imagine how that God is constructing this magnificent temple of living stones, believers around the world, and fitting us together into a masterpiece; stones of every color, every size, and differing weight, and fitting them TIGHTLY and perfectly together for His glory!

Imagine walking into a glorious Temple, a visual masterpiece exemplifying His temple of Living stones…and gazing at the splendor of gold, silver and precious gems … imagine the awe of the beauty you're taking in!

Now brace yourself and imagine a person entering this glorious place, taking a sledgehammer and smashing the walls ... hitting every stone ... doing all he can to desecrate and destroy all this wonder and beauty … you'd say it's the height of insanity, a massive blasphemy against the magnificent work of the Creator!

But how often do we ourselves as His body pick up our hammers, big and small, and do this destructive work?

There is a proverb of Solomon – “Life and death are in the power of the tongue”. Our tongues can become "hammers" of destruction and death to His precious children, His Holy Bride. in the Temple of God, His Body.

Words can build up … and sadly, can also destroy!

Use words, not as hammers of destruction, but as skillful building tools inspired by the Holy Spirit to build one another up … polishing each and every precious stone in God's Temple. Our Lord is a builder, the Living Word who says, "Let there be! And it IS! …so let us also be aware before we open our mouths to speak, as we will be judged for every idle word! We have the words of life to speak into anyone's life today. And "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver." [Proverbs 25:11]

Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy Devotions. This devotional was originally published on Worthy Devotions and was reproduced with permission.

How to display the above article within the Worthy Suite WordPress Plugin.

[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]

One of my favorite and most admired men of faith is a man named George Mueller. George Mueller (1805-1898) did many great works for the Lord in his lifetime, among them building several orphanages.

As the war continues in Israel, I’m finding believers throughout the land filled with peace in spite of the conflict. How is that possible, one may wonder? Could it be these believers are going deep?

Charles Swindoll said “Business (busy-ness) rapes relationships. It substitutes shallow frenzy for deep friendship. It feeds the ego but starves the inner man.”

Another great preacher whose writings I love to read is John R. Rice. He wrote, "I once imagined I was in Heaven, walking along with the Angel Gabriel. I said, "Gabe, what is that big building over there?"

In the modern world, the work ethic is, achieve and produce by working longer and harder! The focus is on getting results through human effort -- we've become product oriented and the bottom line is......the bottom line! But God's way runs contrary to this approach -- His way is much more oriented toward process and relationship rather than performance and production.

The writer of Ecclesiastes was aware of cycles in nature, how they repeat themselves. Some have noticed another interesting historical cycle which awakens our awareness at this time of year. The dates April 15th-21th contain an interesting pattern. This is a time frame which has seen the birth of much havoc in the world. Historically this is when the birth of Rome and the Roman empire took place, the birth of Napoleon and more recently the birth of Hitler and Nazi Germany occurred.

As Israel celebrates Yom Ha'atzmaut – Independence day – Israelis are often reminded of the price that was paid for freedom. But today, in that spirit, I want to recall a time when a heavy price was paid for a translation of our Bible.