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Bought For a Price - The Temple

by Jerry Ousley  
10/17/2009 / Christian Living

We grew up in church. We loved going. Sometimes it wasn't so much for what we could receive from the service but the fact that this was where our friends were. There were times when we'd go on Sunday morning and Sunday night. Some of us would convince our parents to let us stick around all day between services. We'd play music, often play church and have a good time. Later in our teen years we'd wait until our parents left and sneak out and run around town. You could do that in those days without fear that some psycho maniac wouldn't abduct you or anything.

But we did have respect for the building. We were taught that this was the house of God. Later on in life I realized that God works differently nowadays. While we should have a respect for the building in which we meet to worship God, we realize that it isn't like the temple before and during the days of Christ. God is only there when His people are there. His temple is now in the hearts and lives of believers. Our bodies are the Temple of God. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says, "Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's."

The Temple was first built by Solomon, son of David. His father had wanted to build a house for God but because of his wars God would not allow him. That didn't keep him from making plans and storing up material however. When his son Solomon became king he fulfilled his father's wishes and constructed a magnificent edifice for the Lord.

When the people of Judah had rebelled against God to the point that He allowed the Babylonians to overrun them, the Temple was destroyed. Later, in the days of Ezra, it was once again rebuilt and just before the days of Jesus, King Herod did another rebuild of the Temple. Then, during the first century the Romans had it destroyed because they considered the Jews as dangerous enemies of their government. To date it has never been rebuilt.

It didn't really matter however, because God had already established His true temple in the bodies and lives of believers. It is a temple not made with human hands. When believers are together God is with them. He travels with us wherever we go. Our church buildings are really only structures to keep us dry and warm and out of the weather. Again, we should have a respect for those places but we don't regard them with the same emphasis that the Jews did the Temple.

The Temple of God was to be considered a very holy place. There were certain areas of the Temple that only priests could go and the Holy of Holies was to be entered only once per year by a designated priest. Entering was actually going into the presence of God. When Jesus died on Calvary the heavy thick Temple veil that separated the Holy Place (where the priests could go) and the Holy of Holies was ripped in half. This was significant because it represented what Jesus had died to accomplish: Reunite the people with God. After His resurrection and from that day forward God's temple has been in the human soul.

That's one of the reasons we should be careful and cautious about where we go, what we say, what we do and what we think. We are constantly in the presence of God whether we know it or not. He is ever with us. In Mark 7:18-23 Jesus spoke of this very thing. He was talking about sin. In the process He listed a lot of things that come from the heart of man. Sin originates in the heart, not in deeds. Our actions, what we normally call sin, are the result of what is going on in our heart. That's why we've got to get our heart right. We can only do that by allowing ourselves to become the Temple of God, let Him live in us and through us. When we do we are letting God reach out to others from His temple Not a church building but His one and only true temple on earth.

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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