Last week we had a look at the
seventh and last Temple mentioned in the Bible, us. We are God's
Temple now. And therefore we should be proud to be God's Temple.
And I am not meaning being sinfully proud, but that we need to be
proud that we have been chosen to be His Temple now. We need to
treat our bodies with the utmost respect and we should walk around
presenting God's Shekinah glory to the world. We are His
representatives on earth now and we need to display His glory and
love for all to see. You also need to have the joy of the Lord
within you because God is with you, every single moment of every
day. Realize that everywhere you go, you are the Temple and
therefore you shouldn't be seen participating in sinful practices
as this is detrimental to the Temple that you are. The world looks
with skeptical eyes at you if you proclaim to be a Christian. And
therefore when you participate in the drinking party, if you are
the first to gossip, if you speak negatively just like all the
others, if you cheat on your taxes, they see it and are pushed away
from God. Because you are no different than them. The world needs
people who are real, people who will stand up for what is right,
people that will stand firm in what they believe in no matter the
circumstances surrounding them. If Christians can do that, they
will lure people to God and fulfill their life's purpose in the
process. And when you fulfill your life's purpose, you will feel
God's peace; joy and grace descend upon you like a mighty
waterfall. What more could you want from life?
Just interestingly I would like to
end of this first section of our Temple series by showing you the
last time that a Temple is mentioned in the Bible. It is in
Revelation. John is taken and showed a vision of the unfolding of
future events. And at the end of the vision he is shown the new,
holy Jerusalem. The earth is destroyed and a new city descends from
heaven where we all will live with the Lord forever and ever. And
here he noticed something interesting:
"But I saw no Temple in it, for
the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its Temple. The city had no
need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of the
Lord illuminated it. The Lamb is its light." Revelation 21:22,
23
In the New Jerusalem, our ultimate
home, there will be no more Temples. God will be the Temple; He
will be our light, our everything. We won't be the Temple anymore.
Why? Because there will be no more people to lead to the Lord. All
who ever believed in Him will already live in the New Jerusalem.
Our roles won't be to lead people to God anymore. We will be
assigned new roles, specifically tailored for us. I am really
looking forward to that. Eternity with our Maker, our Lord and
Savior! With peace, love and joy our constant companions, doing
what we love doing, doing what we were created to do!
But for now, let us shine and be
the Temple of God to the lost, luring them closer to their destiny.
God loves all people, and if He is our Father, we will love who He
loves. And we will do our utmost best to lure them knowing that He
will help us every step of the way.
Father we look forward to eternity
with You. We look forward to the specific role that You want us to
play there. But thank you for the current roles that we know we
need to play as Your Temple right where we are. Please give us the
courage to stand up when we must, to speak up when we should and to
stay quiet when the time calls for it. We love You and worship You
as our everlasting Father! Amen