"God created the temple to become the temple and die to cleanse the temple and fill the temple with the presence of God." |
IT IS THE Holy Spirit who convicts not “we, ourselves.” What we speak as quote-unquote “conviction” is instead criticism and condemnation of our mind and from our flesh. Saying “the flesh” is simply another way to speak of carnal or bodily things and that which is not from the Spirit or from God. Does a man use foul language and does God disapprove? God would not answer that question. Which is my point. We’d say yes to both, but God would rather speak to what that man does correctly, to what is good and praiseworthy of him. This is our instruction in Philippians 4:8. I particularly like the Living Bible.
“And now, brothers, as I close this letter, let me say this one more thing: Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely, and dwell on the fine, good things in others. Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about.” (Philippians 4:8 TLB)
Think about all the fine, good things in others. Again, does that man curse? Should that be our focus? Instead, ask yourself, “What does he do that is fine and good?”
I made this remark in a previous devotional – Jesus met all kinds of people when He lived on the earth. As a man, walking in the Spirit of God, He ministered to prostitutes, the demon-possessed, religious haters, outcasts such as lepers and those considered unclean. He heard their language and knew their sinful ways. When He was sent by the Father, to many He spoke of their forgiveness for sins before He ever mentioned healing. The man let down through the roof by his friends is one example. Those viewing did not understand why He forgave. But the same power that heals also forgives. God forgives and heals.
“What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?” David asks in Psalm 8:4.
I was driving in the car and thought of an old friend, and in that moment, the Spirit revealed His heart in the creation of man in a way I did not expect. He did not simply breathe life into dust in order to make men in His image and after His likeness and create children around Him. He knew, of course, of the fall of man which would happen and had prepared a body for Jesus to come to earth and redeem mankind (Hebrews 10:5). But greater than that, man was built to be the temple of God. We are temples. Temples. Temples. He kept repeating. Man is a temple.
Israel committed acts of sin inside the temple, the worship of false gods, including many of a sexual nature, and they were taken into captivity because of it. Despite the words of the prophets, they would not repent. But to allow the temple to operate in a manner n which it was not created for, to fill it with demonic ideology was sacrilege. Ezekiel had a vision of the imagery painted upon the walls of the holy places. He saw the cultic activity behind closed doors. It is not simply that we sin against God with sexual desires, nor even as it is in the eyes of the church, that men are filled with lust and fornication and adultery. It is that we are meant to be a temple of God. That God who created the temple to become the temple and die to cleanse the temple and fill the temple with the presence of God.
“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?” (1 Corinthians 6:19)
In the gospels, Jesus said, When an unclean spirit goes out of a man it wanders in desert places seeking rest, and finding none, it returns and finds its “house,” the body it left, cleansed and swept and garnished. So it moves back in and brings with it seven more wicked than itself. And the last state of that man is worse than the first (Matthew 12:43-45). Because we are created to be temples, filled with the power of God, operating under the wisdom of God, speaking like God, acting like God to the same magnitude that Jesus did, knowing who God was in Him. I had this revelation recently, that He gave up all of His memory to become man. He remembered nothing as an infant and had to learn and be taught (Luke 2:52). We see men’s minds fail from damage and disease and think God is far above it, or even that He is pitying and compassionate. But no, from before time, He planned to give up all His power and glory, and even His memory, and be the example of the temple, who man can be with God in him.
The love of God is so deep and wide and high, unfathomable, without ending, and for all those lost in sickness and disease, illness, injury, and for every form and manner of sin. God is so good. He loves men so much. And the devil has many deceived in a manner that destroys the temple. God can clean it. He wants to clean it. He hungers to restore and renew men’s hearts to righteousness. So when men in the church say one sin is greater than another, when they label people in a manner that refuses them forgiveness, they do not see the heart of God. Sin is not simply a choice made to rebel against God. It is not just choosing to go your own way and live as you please. It is not even, really, about heaven or hell. But that man is a temple of God, and He would live in them in His fullness because this is what the human body was created to be.
We are not just ourselves. We are not our own nor ever have been. But God made temples of His presence, knowing what He would do to become one, and what as a man He would display as one, and how He would die to make all of us just like Him. How beautifully sacred that is. Beyond words.
“And he [Jesus, age 12] said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?” (Luke 2:49)
“And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” (Luke 2:52)
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com
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