Just Pondering
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Rick Branan |
Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (CSBBible)
Skye Peterson is a singer-songwriter based in Nashville, TN. Although she has been writing and recording since high school, she began her career as a musician after studying theology and being inspired by biblical history and hermeneutics. Now writing hymns for Getty Music, Skye is also performing her own concerts and hoping to tell the world that they are not alone and that there’s a King who’s worth singing about.
From Sing 2026
I Am Not My Own
The One who made the heavens made my heart and soul
Before I drew a breath, I was loved and known
I am His creation, the Maker’s masterpiece
And all that He designs will be done in me
My body is a temple of the Living God
I’ll worship in this house that His blood has bought
As I bear His image, oh may I not profane
The holiness I hold in this earthly frame
I belong to the Lord, oh I am not my own
I belong to the Lord, I am not my own
I will honor Him for this I know
I belong to the Lord, I am not my own
And if He has redeemed me, I am not my own
The measure of my worth is His love alone
He declares my standing, and He declares my state
So I will know myself by the name He gave
I am not my own and now my heart is free
O Maker come and make what You will of me
There is nothing broken that You cannot repair
So Lord, I leave my life in Your loving care
Written by Skye Peterson
In learning this song, I wanted to share Skye Peterson’s own words about her inspiration.
Despite the unshakeable reality of my new life in Christ, I still struggle with identity amnesia. I daily forget who I am and whose I am.
I suspect my generation, Gen Z, has a particularly thick mass of identity crises to wade through. The world screams “Be you” and “Your choice” and “Your truth”; yet it also screams “Be like us” and “Choose our way” and “Our truth is the right truth.” It’s dizzying.
We’re constantly told, as if it’s freeing news, “You belong to yourself and therefore define yourself.” The malleable understanding of gender and sexuality, the pervasive pressure for a unique social media aesthetic, and (dare I say) the gravitational pull toward political extremes are just some of the surface-level symptoms of the deeper issue: we forget who we are and whose we are.
In search of sturdier ground for understanding who I am, I’ve been drawn to the centuries-old Heidelberg Catechism. Here’s how it begins:
Question: What is your only comfort in life and in death?
Answer: That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life
and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
My fellow songwriter Ben Shive and I were teaching a children’s Sunday school class about the Tower of Babel. At one point, a little girl said, “I see. They were trying to make a name for themselves, even though God had already given them a name.”
Ben and I looked at each other and said, “That needs to become a song.” We belong to the One who names us. It’s good news—freeing, redemptive, liberating news—that I am not my own.
Back to my thoughts. Paul hit the nail on the head in writing to the Corinthians, a church started in a city known for sexual immorality and a divided congregation struggling with worldliness. He said your body is a temple, not your own. In Romans 12, Paul writes, “Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.” We are not “free” to do what the world wants because we were bought at a price.
Peterson writes:
My body is a temple of the Living God.
I’ll worship in this house that His blood has bought.
As I bear His image, oh may I not profane
The holiness I hold in this earthly frame
Christ gave His life for us. Let’s live as His temple and use our gifts as worship.
Just pondering . . . Bro. Rick