Do You Know You Are God’s Temple?
Good Morning Friends,
Today’s scripture explores the nature of God’s Temple and God’s Sanctuary both in our hearts and minds, and on the altars of the world cleansed and redeemed for a holy purpose. It truly is a wonderful picture of hope if you believe and a frightening thought as well. Do You Know You Are God’s Temple?
Scripture: Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple; there, water was flowing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east); and the water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar. Then he brought me out by way of the north gate, and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that faces toward the east; and the water was coming out on the south side. He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah; and when it enters the sea, the sea of stagnant waters, the water will become fresh. Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish, once these waters reach there. It will become fresh; and everything will live where the river goes. On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.”
Ezekiel 47:1-2, 8-9, 12 (NRSV)
For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
1 Corinthians 3:9c-11, 16-17 (NRSV)
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
John 2:13-22 (NRSV)
Message: It may be your body and it may be the world you live in, but it still belongs to God. We have indeed been bought with a price. And it was not perishable things by which we were redeemed. It is the life of Jesus Christ who was ordained before the foundation of the world to set us free to glorify God. And because the Holy Spirit resides in us, therefore, we are to honor God as part of the Body of Christ. Now, if God meant simply to convey the idea that the Spirit lives within the believer, He could well have said we are home to God. But by choosing the word, temple, to describe the Spirit’s dwelling, scripture conveys the idea that our bodies are the shrine, or the sacred place, in which the Spirit not only lives, but is worshiped, revered, and honored. Therefore, how we behave, think and speak, and what we let into the temple becomes critically important as well, for every thought, word and deed is in God’s view. So too the world, as God’s Sanctuary, seems to convey a similar image for our collective worship. God expects all creation, both the visible and the invisible to become alive in the purity, power, prayer and praise of God. We are to experience this life not just as particles but as waves, not just as individuals but collectively. And that is why God cleans our house so our hearts and minds can be raised up as a new Temple. Friends, it is a bit of a prophetic mystery but my reading of today’s scripture encourages me to believe that all believers and all creation will ultimately live by the Spirit and in the Spirit in unity as a place of worship redeemed. And that beautiful picture of resurrection is the very nature of love.
Pray we realize that we have been consecrated for a holy purpose of bearing fruit. Pray we realize that God dwells in each one of us and that seed of faith and the Word made flesh can bear much fruit. Pray we not grieve the Spirit. Pray we live by the Spirit worshipping God with our every thought. Pray we no longer gratify the desires of our sinful nature but instead be part of a redeemed creation for God’s glory. Pray we are conformed to the image of God. Pray we are transformed by the purity, power, purpose, prayer and praise of God.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 