Temple part 1
The carpenter Jesus built a house. And that house... is you. "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" (1 Corinthians 6:19 NLT). And that right there is the problem. We don't realize it. We're so busy trying to build our own houses (or, worse yet, kingdoms) that we don't understand that the work is finished. And we don't understand what it means that the work is finished. To use another Biblical picture: The gardener Jesus HAS already pruned every tree in His garden. So when it feels like things are being cut off of you--things that you never needed in the first place--what is really happening is the manifestation of the fulness of what happened 2,000 years ago on the cross (and really what happened before anything else happened, because the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world). You don't need to chnage. You need to see the change that has already taken place. This idea that God loves you just the way you are BUT loves you too much to leave you that way has never held any water with me. Because love doesn't demand its (HIS) own way. Love doesn't want you to change. Love loves you for who you are. But at the same time, love DOES want the best for you. Love doesn't want you to struggle to be someone you're not. Love wants to show you who you REALLY are. By loving the hell out of you. By shining the light of the world ON you, so that it can shine THROUGH you. When you see who you really are--by seeing Jesus--you can BE who you really are. You CAN realize that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and that God lives inside you. LOVE lives inside you. Its not about getting the garden ready for God. Its about how God got the garden--YOU--ready for Himself. God was in Christ on the cross reconciling you to Himself. When we were running from God He was running towards us with His arms wide open. When we didn't have anything to offer... He gave us everything He had. Everything He is. He gave His life for us, and He gave His life to us. He took up abode within us. Its not a temple made with hands. Its the temple that WE are. And, since we're building the foundation of this Rant series tonight, let's define "temple." In the KJV of 1 Corinthians 6:19 "temple" is number 3485 in Strong's Greek Concordance and it means, "to dwell. a fane, shrine, temple." And obviously I like the dwelling place part. We dwell in Him because He dwells in us. We dwell in LOVE because LOVE dwells in us. We're going to hit that hard in the next few days. But I also want to talk about the idea of our body being a shrine. To love. According to dictionary.com (and, again, we'll get into this a lot more in the next few days) a shrine is "any structure or place consecrated or devoted to some saint, holy person, or deity, as an altar, chapel, church, or temple." So WE are a place devoted to... love. That's our whole purpose. We were created to be loved and to love. That's why the carpenter built us. He wanted a house to live in. He wanted a place to keep (and by keep I mean store until it can be given away) His stuff. His... love!