1 Corinthians 3:16 - Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?
Wow, this is a heavy verse.
Imagine, us being the temple of God. Could anything be cooler than that?
What does the temple of God represent? Well, quite simply it is a place where God and man come together. Where we can go to find and worship God. A place where God can come down from heaven and have his presence dwell.
The first time we see this is in creation in the Garden of Eden. The Garden was God's temple as he walked with Adam. God and man dwelled together in perfection until the great fall came and sin entered our world. God then drove the man out of the garden and did not dwell with us anymore as he did with Adam and Eve.
We see God visiting with patriarchal men from that point until he called Abram with the promise of making him into a great nation. God changed Abrams's name to Abraham and thru his descendants kept the promise alive that one day he would again dwell with his people. We have always been the apple of God’s eye, the climax of his creation, the focus of his love.
Much like a father who loves his children more than anything else and would give his life for the sake of his children. God protected the lineage for which the savior of the world would someday come.
One day God’s patriarchal children were settled in Egypt and ended up being enslaved to the Egyptian nation. His people cried out to God because of their suffering and God raised up a man to deliver them from the Egyptians. His name was Moses and at that time they numbered so many that they had become their own nation.
Since they had no place to call home they traveled and God promised them a land that they could call their own. As they traveled they made a temple that was portable called a tabernacle. This was where God dwelled with the nation Israel as they wandered for 40 years being led by God’s presence above the tabernacle. It was where God came down from heaven and met with man on earth.
Sometime later, God, preserving the lineage of Jesus, a king named David had a son, Solomon. God blessed him because he loved God and asked for wisdom to be a good king. Solomon was to be the man who would build a great and magnificent temple for the Lord to dwell in.
It took Solomon 7 years to build with thousands of men made of beautiful white marble, cedar, and pure gold. Immensely beautiful and awestriking.
God then said to Solomon “I have heard the prayer and plea you have made before me; I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting my Name there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.
God now met with his people in this temple, a place where God and man could come together.
However thru the years that followed God left his temple, because the people in charge of the temple had polluted it, and desecrated it. What was meant to be a house of prayer turned into a den of thieves. What was meant to be a place for all people to worship and meet with God- became desolate. And for 400 years God was silent to his chosen people.
Later in God's timing, Jesus the Son of God came and revealed himself in bodily form, as he was both God and man, and those alive at the time could be with God, by being with Jesus, as HE was now where God’s spirit dwelt on earth. He was the temple of God and could walk around in bodily form. He was the mobile tabernacle. You could touch Him, speak to Him, feel his flesh, and have a conversation with Him. Be healed by Him. He had flesh like us!!
Now the time had come where God was providing a way,- a way He could be with his sinful children thu the blood sacrifice of his Son Jesus.
Upon his death, Jesus said he would not leave us as orphans but would send the comforter, His Holy Spirit to be with us.
Jesus was the living temple on earth while he was on this earth. The Living Stone as Peter puts it and now we are the living stones!!
1 Peter 2:4
You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple. He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honor. As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—
And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God.
We now are God’s temple and priests, working to bring his people to Himself. God never gives up pursuing the people he loves, the apple of his eye, the pinnacle of his creation.
1 Corinthians 6:19
Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself,
Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; for God bought you at a high price. So you must honor God with your body.
Absolutely mind-blowing that God’s Spirit has taken up residence in us and now we are his mobile tabernacle. We are now the place where people can come to meet with God here on this earth, do you realize what that means, do you realize what has been entrusted to us?
What is our response to this?
The only response we can have is to devote our life to God and his mission of saving the lost. And once saved we have to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in making them disciples of Jesus. This is God's will for our lives. We are the temple where people can meet with God. Returning the wayward back to the loving arms of the Father. We have received this inheritance, this legacy, to continue what Christ started, to proclaim the good news to the poor, to bring the people back to the one true God. So that we can be ministers and ambassadors of reconciliation for God’s created people.
God has no other plan B now for his church… that’s it, it is us. We are His church.
My goodness, what overwhelming emotions I feel right now. I am at the 3rd watch of the prayer weekend and tears are streaming down my face and I’m crying like a baby, overwhelmed by the Spirit's impact of this reality on my life. I have to take a break now.
I hope that God's Spirit speaks to you thru what I wrote with just a fraction of the intensity of what I experienced today!! Take care of God's temple and do not let it become desolate!! It was meant for the Lord!! When people see you they should be able to see God's Temple!!
And the story isn’t done yet, my friends. Jesus promised he will come back and do away with all temples. He will make a cosmic temple where his presence will be among us all in the universe like it was meant to be in the Garden of Eden.
Revelation 21
1: Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
2: And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
3: I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them.
4: He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.
22: I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
23: And the city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light.
24: The nations will walk in its light, and the kings of the world will enter the city in all their glory.
25: Its gates will never be closed at the end of the day because there is no night there.
26: And all the nations will bring their glory and honor into the city.
27: Nothing evil will be allowed to enter, nor anyone who practices shameful idolatry and dishonesty—but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Amen, come Lord Jesus!!
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