Daily Verse
Friday, August 14, 2026
Stewardship
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Friday's Reflection
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 — What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
Paul brings stewardship all the way home to the most basic thing we possess — our own selves. He says something that cuts against every instinct of our culture: you are not your own. We are raised to believe that our lives, our bodies, and our choices belong entirely to us, to do with as we please. Paul says the opposite. We were bought with a price — the life of Christ Himself — and that means we belong to God. Our very bodies are the temple of His Spirit. The most fundamental act of stewardship is recognizing that we ourselves are not our own property to spend however we like, but a trust to be managed for the One who owns us.
This changes how we treat the whole of life. If our bodies belong to God, then how we care for them, what we do with them, and how we use our physical strength all become matters of stewardship rather than mere personal preference. If our minds and spirits are His, then what we fill them with matters too. Paul's conclusion is sweeping: glorify God in your body and in your spirit, because both are God's. There is no part of us left over that is exempt — no private corner of life that we get to keep entirely for ourselves. The whole self is on loan, and the whole self is meant to honor the Owner.
This sounds demanding, and it is — but it is also deeply freeing. To belong to God means we are not the desperate, self-made owners of our own lives, responsible for squeezing every drop of meaning out of them before they end. We are stewards of something that belongs to a good Master who loves us and bought us at the highest price. That takes the crushing weight of self-ownership off our shoulders. We do not have to make our lives count by our own frantic effort. We simply have to manage faithfully what He has entrusted to us, knowing that our lives are safe in the hands of the One who paid for them.
Prayer: Lord, we confess that we often live as if we belonged only to ourselves. Remind us that we were bought with a price and are not our own. Help us to glorify You in our bodies and our spirits, stewarding our whole selves for the One who owns us. Amen.