We live a natural, biological life until we receive Christ as our Lord. It is then that we receive the life of God and are renewed spiritually. This spiritual rebirth is “from above” (often translated “born again”). This life is everlasting, in that it continues through and beyond this present life. We who have everlasting life in our spirits have mortal bodies but when resurrected, our bodies will also become immortal.
The body of a Christian is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The spirit is the temple’s Most Holy place, its inner shrine. Holiness is not one or the other but both (1 Thessalonians 5:23) We need to keep clean spiritually and physically. My late mother’s refrain was “Cleanliness is next to godliness!” However, the two are not just neighbours but are tenants in the same house!
Which is why we “cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” We cleanse the flesh from dirt and the mind from pornography. We also cleanse ourselves spiritually from idolatry, tarot card reading, Ouija board searches, seances (seeking contact with the dead), and other evil, demonic practices strictly prohibited by the Bible.
I say again: To be holy is to be clean spiritually, not just physically. The Spirit of God helps us to do this, day by day. In dying for us, Jesus justified us, which enabled us to have a relationship with God. Thereafter, the Holy Spirit has sanctified us: keep us clean spiritually so that our fellowship with God is an intimate one. John the apostle is a good model for those who seek this kind of personal intimacy.
This fellowship then becomes possible with the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit (1 John 1:3). A Christian’s lack of fellowship with both reveals a lack of gratitude yet has no effect on his or her relationship to God. A child born into a family and loved and cared for but shows little or no gratitude to its parents in adulthood is still ‘family’ regardless.
Those who acknowledge their new birth relationship and also enjoy intimate, spiritual fellowship with God their Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ, will be safe and secure in this life and also in the life that is to come. Which is why Jesus was able to promise: “But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” (Luke 12:7)
Your relationship with God is secure eternally, but God and Jesus want your fellowship in this life as well as in the next.