Reverence for the Temple of the LORD

In the Old Testament several kings of Judah repented of the national rebellion against God. One of their actions following that repentance was to cleanse the land of idol worship and to tear down the high places. Repentance toward the LORD also led to cleansing and repair of the temple at Jerusalem.

Ok a bit corny but only one close HA!

In the New Testament, Paul states in 1 Corinthians  that we are the temple of the LORD. No longer a physical place we go to, but a reality of God in Us.
We are His holy dwelling.

 1 Corinthians 6:19-20  

 Or do you not know that your body is a  temple of the Holy Spirit within you,

 whom   you have from God?   

You are not your own, 

for you

 were bought with a price. 

So glorify God in your body.

This brings up some questions.   Am I, as God's temple,  a temple of honor to Him?  Do I worship God alone.  Or, are there things in my life that dishonor Him?  What other areas are there in need of cleansing?
My heart easily harbors sinful behavior. Whether willful sin or careless thinking, bad attitudes, resentment or unforgiveness – all can quickly spring up.   As is true of other sins unnamed.

On top of the inner cleansing, there is then also the recognizing and removing of the idols of the heart. All of this, both inner and outer cleansing will be: 

     1) individual in every case
     2) and will only be revealed in truth as we draw near to the LORD.

We need to be spending time in the word daily –   

     Psalm 119:109 Your word is a lamp to my feet 

and a light to my path.

We need to give thanksgiving with our prayers and requests -   

  Philippians 4:6 do not be anxious about anything, but

in everything by prayer and supplication with 

thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

We need to take notice of our thoughts -

                     Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers, 
     whatever is true, 
          whatever is honorable, 
                whatever is just,
                    whatever is pure, 
                        whatever is lovely, 
                            whatever is commendable, 
               if there is any excellence, 
           if there is anything worthy of praise, 
                 think about these things.

And finally, we must remember God does the work in our lives. 

Our place is to be alert to hearing his voice as we immerse ourselves in His word, in thanksgiving, in praise and being aware of the thoughts and attitudes in our hearts and allowing him to direct our lives. Not the other way around.

         Galatians  2:16      yet we know that a person is not

    justified by works of the law but through faith

    in  Jesus Christ, so we also have  believed  in

    Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith

    in Christ  and not by works of the law, because

    by  works  of  the law no one will be justified.

Yes, we are His Temple.  We don't do the cleansing ourselves but we need to allow Him access to His temple and give him full access and rights to accomplish His work.

The 2nd man Adam

Jesus, the only begotten son of God  came as a man.

The first man Adam had every advantage. He had only one  "don't" in all the universe - yet the appeal to be "like God, knowing good and evil" was his  undoing.

Then in the fullness of time Christ came, born a man in a fallen world where sin was the norm. His shared advantage with Adam was that he was not born with the sin nature.  And like Adam, with his sinless nature, his major obedience lay in obeying the voice of his Father.  But, like us, Jesus faced a world filled with sin and all it's temptations.  Tempted by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.  However he did what Adam failed to do, he lived without sinning.

I cannot even imagine how a sinless life would look. This awes me.

Moreover, part of his pressure was rejection  because his very life spoke to the unrighteousness in those around Him. At least it's a part of the pressure of our world around us today when we seek to walk in God's paths.

The expression  "Oh, don't be a holy Joe" or some form of that is the direct response to someone seeking to make righteous choices in the face of  temptations. Such choices are scary because of the rejection that we face.  We love the LORD but we also want to be acceptable by our peers and those whose approval we desire in our

The life of Christ is not teaching us if we try hard enough we can also live a sin free life, but that because he did so live, when He gave his life on the cross, his sacrifice was sufficient

His death  was sufficient to cover our sins.  And because death is the curse of Sin, once Christ's death was accomplished, and that only because our sins held him in death, when his sacrifice accomplished it's work, death could not keep him.  He arose from death unto eternal life.  His finished work is that now,  when we open the door of our life to his knocking, and repent of our sins and accept his covering for our sin, his life makes it possible for our sins to be forgive.   He, the righteous sacrifice is sufficient for my salvation.

His great love makes my heart explode with joy and gratitude.  I THANK YOU OH LORD.  There is no praise great enough I can give you that can fully express how amazing your gift of Salvation is, for me, and for all who will listen to, hear, and answer the knocking of the Savior on the door of our lives.  

     Revelation 3: 20    

Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

 If anyone hears my

     voice and opens the door, 

I will come in to him 

and eat with him 

and he with

     me."

Remember the secular song "To know, know, know Him is to love love love Him, and I do............" Love my Savior the LORD Jesus Christ

               "What I  believe about God is the most important thing about  me." -                                                                                                     A W Tozer

Psalm 100 - ESV

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!

2 Serve the Lord with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!
3 Know that the Lord, he is God!
It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!
5 For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.


Worship is coming to celebrate Our LORD and God, not to find Him.  To bask in his presence.

Joy in worship - it is choosing to worship, expressing joy in the LORD, even if you don't feel it.   In your act of choice, the 'feeling'  will follow.

Serve the LORD with gladness in your life's duties.  Serve with verve/vigor.  Make a choice that in all you do, you deliberately do it unto the LORD

Come into His presence with singing -  God inhabits our praise raised to Him in the form of singing.

Worship in Truth
      Know Him as God
      Know Him as God who is! 
      Know Him as a God who is personal.                      
      Know Him as a God who made me.

God becomes our God when we open the door of our hearts to him.  As His child we can:  
           Know that we are His -
           Know we are His sheep
           Know we are His sheep in His pasture.  

We are given an identity  in God, a personal, named identity.

Therefore, let's enter God's presence with thanks giving, enter his courts with praise.
WHY?   The LORD is good.  His "Checed"  (Hebrew word with many meanings but steadfast love, loving kindness, mercy and favor are a few of the English words used in an effort to bring the true meaning of the word to life) love endures forever, faithful to and through all generations.  

                                                       Put together with notes from messages on worship by John Weldon.

We are the Dwelling place of the LORD.

         Psalm 84: 1-2 , 4-5a, 11-12   How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts!
         2      My Soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD, my heart and flesh sing
                 for joy to  the living God.
         4     Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise! Selah
         5     Blessed are those whose strength is in you.
         11   For the LORD God is a sun and shield, the LORD bestows favor and honor.
                No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.
         12   O LORD of Hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!

We, our bodies, are the temple of the Holy Spirit. 
So, in the words, "How lovely is your dwelling place" it means me and you - we His people.  See:
                  I Corinthians 6:19-20 (ESV)   Or do you not know that
                              your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, 
                              whom you have from God?  You are not your own, 
                              for you were bought with a price.  So, glorify God 
                              in your body.
  
Am I living as one who appreciates all He is and has done.

Am I proactively giving God thanks in ALL things, and seeing that HE is indeed the giver of good things, favor, honor, my sun and my shield.  Am I longing for His courts, singing for joy - rejoicing in the LORD for the truth of who HE is and what HE has done in my life.

 I need to live and act and and have my being in the LORD and unto the LORD.    

Man, the idol - Quote by John R. W. Stott

Man, the Idol — John R. W. Stott (1921 - 2011)

For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives which belong to God alone; God accepts penalties which belong to man alone.

  

Amazing words and powerful in meaning!

Comment on quote by R C Sproul and message by him.

R C Sproul   - in one of his messages on the Holiness of God:

"Sin is cosmic treason"

All sin, every sin committed is attacking God's soverignity.

So often, as stated in his message   Justice and Grace, I have come to take God's grace in my life as my  right - and even feel anger if I begin to 'feel' God is not  living up to my expectations of his grace.

If God gave me justice for all my acts of rebellion direct, or just "doin' it my way" independence I would NOT be well, or maybe even alive today.   But, I have experienced incredible mercy and grace, His lovingkindness and forgiveness of sins, all of which, at the bottom line are directly against Him.  

LORD God,  thank you for your grace.   

Crossroads - from 1972

I sat at the crossroads

and before me lay a choice

one, a narrow road,

steep, rough, hard

going to a “good” promised end;

yet in between

lay all the hardships

ever mortal could conceive,

or so it seemed,

looking up and seeing

only a treacherous narrow path

in the fog obscured.

                                                             

The other road was broad,

well worn, provided

with sunlight and ease,

and all that could

give pleasure along the way,

or so it seems.

Yet, looking down

just briefly it seemed the   

color was wrong, unreal,                                                                  
gaudy,    and a faint rumor 
of sorrow and pain;  

but the end was far off and

the reports uncertain -

they could be wrong.

                                                              Well – I would try each one

for awhile, and choose            

on the basis of what

I found myself

But the sign -

No, I won't read it again.

It forces me.

I can't.

I must....................

                                          “CHOOSE NOW,
                           YOU CAN NEVER KNOW WHICH

                              IS THE LAST CROSSROAD.”



I look back,                              
thinking to return

the way I'd come, 
to not have to decide,

But that path is gone -

behind is an infinite

emptiness.

I am on the edge of nothingness  with only 
                                                                      the two roads before me.

I sit down crying

       for the lonely,                         

       disappointing past,

       for the longing to

       continue on the broad

       easy road,

       for fear.

I wanted to take the steep, narrow road, but was afraid

the path did not reveal more than a few steps ahead, 
and those rough and hard
 and no visible pleasures to be experienced.

I looked up trying to see more

I thought my tears had                     

blinded my vision

A little above me,

on the curve in the

mountain path,

stood a new born lamb

White, whiter than white,

and perfect – but

the lamb had the eyes of a man,

filled with love

around him was light -

and I could see to go to him -

I looked to my feet to

place them on that road.

I looked up again

He had moved further up

and was dim – but in

his steps there was blood. 
It trickled down to my feet

and covered my toes,

and I knew I could follow.

I understood that

with each step up

He was ahead.

Though only one step      

was visible at a time,

where I stepped, it was into

glorious light.

The colors were brilliant, alive 

I grew tired, and rested,

surrounded by a strange peace      

I could not be lonely as

long as I followed.

I knew he was there, ahead,

even though I could not see him and I slowly came to hear his quiet words.

I don't know the next step       

but I've found I can trust

in the Son of God,  
the Son of Man before me.

In Him I am held forevermore,
Kept close to his heart and
safe.

Sinning and forgiveness

I have seen in myself  how I know the way of the LORD - in many ways, but I've also seen in myself  sin that I had been blithely calling my personality.   Claiming it is who I am, it's me.  ARG!!!

I know what is right but when it cuts across what I want to do, I do what I want.  And it hit me that doing what I want in the face of the knowledge that it is not God's righteousness or way,  that I have disrespect for God's forgiveness. For His    crucifixion  and death, to buy for me Salvation (to become a child of God) and forgiveness for my sin.

Yes, I certainly know God will forgive me.  Moreover, I know even as I sin, I will being going to the LORD seeking forgiveness.  That means I am making Christ's death for my sins a light matter.

This is a spirit of independence in me.  All my protestations that I love the LORD, that He is LORD of my life, is nothing when I still do what I want anyway.  

It's so easy to go over the speed limit if I don't think I'll get caught, 'cuz I like to go.... fast!  I do not think the speed limit is wrong.  I do believe that part of God's will is that we obey the laws of the land where we are resident.  But when I want to do it my way, I DO.   This is one of the ways I choose my way over what is right.

I have known the LORD all my life, brought up by a pastor/missionary Father and Mother who lived their  lives by their faith.  As an adult now, I reckon  they had their own battles and struggles but as a child I was secure in the assurance that they were in their lives what they taught me was God's way.

This opening of my eyes to my rebellion and casual view toward doing what I want even when not in line with what God desires has totally  blown my socks off as it were.    Now,  I believe God has given me the freedom of choice but I also know with those I love  I make choices that I know will be what they like, even if it's not exactly what I want to do.

In a greater way, God has lavished His love on me and the desire of His heart,  is my love in return.  That how I live would be motivated by my love for Him, even when it may not be exactly what I feel like doing.

How can it be that I know this and have known it, it seems like all my life, but only now am seeing that in truth I have drifted away from loving obedience.

Dear LORD, forgive me.  And thank you for a love so great that  you don't quit loving when I sin, and that your love is such that you will lead me to see areas in my own life that are a hindrance to our fellowship.  Thank you for your revelation and that when I come to you in repentance your forgiveness is complete and healing.  I LOVE YOU LORD.  

Home!!!

Heaven is my true home.  Yes, I must enjoy my life here - but it is as though I have left my true home - heaven - to go for an outing at the park.   I enjoy it at the park but I don't live there.  The park is NOT my home.  My home is in my father's house.  My life as I know and live it on earth is not my true abode.  It's not even my true country.

Here, as I live out the days given me to visit and enjoy God's creation and life I sometimes get bogged down in the here and now of life and tend to lose sight of my true home.   I find I have desires, longings, attractions, even cravings within and too often think those 'things' are what I want, even need.  But I'm coming to believe they are the false enticements made by my greatest adversary, Satan, to try and derail my faith in Christ.  As a human creature I am very much tied to the physical and emotional aspects of my humanity.  I have to learn to know and grow in the spiritual aspects of being a child of the true and only King of all creation - My LORD Jesus Christ.  I have to lay hold of, in faith, the vision of my true home, and grow to know my LORD

Loved and Chosen

Why did God create me so that no act of mine can earn for me a place or position in Him?   It is all based on God's love for me, and having made a way for me to enter into that love - to be filled up with his love in me, and his love in me is the love I am able to give back to him.

But why, why me?  A truth yes, but so very difficult to comprehend.  I get  glimpses - it's like an iceberg peak, just breaking the oceans surface, where the size of the body lies almost all hidden from sight.  But when I get to the peak, and reach out to hold onto it, I find my feet are solidly planted and secure in God's love.

God's word declares I was chosen in Him before the creation of the World.

Ephesians 1:4  Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

 Also, Psalm 139:13-16    For you formed my inward parts:  you knitted me together in my mother's womb.  
I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are your works.  (Me? Wonderful? WOW)  my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,  when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.  
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
In your book were written, every on of them,   the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

I find this all so big.  I have to believe it because I believe what God says. Yet still I find the question - me?  And I hear the reply YES, you.
This is also true for all drawn to the LORD of Glory, Creator, King, Mighty God.

Songs of Joy, clothed with gladness

Psalm 65: 8b  (NIV)  Where morning dawns and evening fades you call for the songs of  joy.

Psalm 65:  12b (NIV) Hills clothed with gladness.

I love the pictures these two sentences create in my mind.   Both pictures are created with and leave me filled up with gaiety and delight.

Temptation

Temptations:  there are so many, yes, but some are much harder than others.   I have tried several things.

1.  Try and ignore them
2.  Ask God to remove them miraculously and without my own efforts
3.  Give in to them   (never the answer I know!)

But the thing that seems to be God's way,  I am finding is I have to:

1.  Acknowledge the sin or temptation
2.  Hold it up to the LORD and let  His light shine on the dark places in my heart
     and mind.  So much I struggle with seems to start in my mind.
3.  And walk through the temptation by God's empowering.

In other words, temptations are NOT going to go away, nor even disappear because I want them to - but I have to face them and find God's way.

I like this quote from my favorite author C S Lewis:

"Only those who try to  resist temptation know how strong it is.  ....We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it: and Christ, because He was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means - the only complete realist."    
                                                                                                                          from  Mere Christianity.

He made another statement I've loved.  I cannot find a direct quote or remember the book, but it's meaning has often come as a comfort.  It is to the effect that when you feel you cannot resist one second longer, that you just have to yield, if you resist at that point you are past that point of the temptation for that time.

And the verse which has come to comfort me most I thing is :

I Corinthians 10:13  (KJV)

13.  There hath no temptation taken you 

but such as is common to man:  But

God is faithful, who will not suffer you 

to be tampted above what ye are able;

 but will with the temptation also make 

a way to escape, that ye may be able to 

bear it.

Oh LORD God Almighty, thank you

that I do not walk alone.

God's design

Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the time, and not be discouraged at the rests. They are not to be slurred over, not to be omitted, not to destroy the melody, not to change the keynote. If we look up, God himself will beat the time for us. With the eye on him, we shall strike the next note full and clear.    John Ruskin (1819-1900)

Fundamentally, our Lord’s message was Himself. 

He did not come merely to preach a Gospel; 

He himself is that Gospel. 

He did not come merely to give bread; 

He said, “I am the bread.” 

He did not come merely to shed light; 

He said, “I am the light.” 

He did not come merely to show the door; 

He said, “I am the door.” 

He did not come merely to name a shepherd; 

He said: “I am the shepherd.” 

He did not come merely to point the way; 

He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

J. Sidlow Baxter

Joni Tada on suffering and sin

Quote from Joni Eareckson Tada in interview with Marvin Olasky in WORLD magazine  January 26, 2013 edition.

Why doesn't God just eradicate suffering all together?

            If He were to eradicate suffering, He'd have to eradicate sin
            in which suffering has it's roots.
            And if He were to eradicate sin,
            He'd have to eradicate sinners."

How the road looks to me at times.

I've been struggling with my expectations of what God should do.

Too often, my thinking is, I'm his child so He should:
     Rescue me, take all the pain away,  
    give me no hardship, sickness,
    no  bad times.

But, when I look at history, believers who served God mightily have also suffered.
   

We see  ill health;  pain;  early death; poverty, even torture for their faith in their pathway.

In  some cases we are given a record  detailing  their lives and work in the kingdom, yet with suffering and hardship.  I am seeing that God their Father did not cushion their lives, prevent pain, sorrow, hardship, sickness and even death - but their lives were held never-the-less in God's keeping, and they did not walk alone.

Moreover, only in  some cases are we are given a glimpse of the value of  the lives of those around us.  It seems to me that too often we only see/ or maybe notice the hard parts, not the glory.

So, the bottom line today is:
   
     Do I trust that God is in my hardship as well as the good times?
     Do I believe God loves me and is directing my life?
     Do I give Him thanksgiving and worship even when my life is not going my
     way?  

     Yes, and Yes, and Yes.  

I do Lord God, by your enabling power in my life trust you.

                                             THANK YOU!

God's gifts, God's divine promises

I am a gift from the God the Father to His Son, Jesus Christ.

II Timothy 1:9 who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus *before the ages began, (ESV)  * Greek here "before time began"

Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him *before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. (ESV) *Greek here "before time began"

God saved us and called us, with a holy calling. Not according to our works, but according to HIS holy purpose and grace, granted to us in Christ Jesus.

To whom did God make this promise?

It was the Father to the Son. The father's love gave a love gift to the son - The gift? A redeemed humanity.

He predetermined who would be included in that love gift to his Son.

John 6: 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.  ESV

John 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.  ESV

John 6:39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.  ESV

All the Father gives me shall come to me.

All the Father gives to the son are drawn to him.

All who are drawn will come

All who come will be received.

Of all who are given to Christ, not one will be lost.

That is me, and you, all who are born again into Christ. We are God's gift to his son our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ.

 
 LORD God Almighty, 
 I love you, 
 I worship you. 
 In awe I bow down,
 amazed, delighted, and
 reverent. 
 Thank you.








from notes on message "Election" by John MacArther -
http://www.ligonier.org/rym/broadcasts/audio/election1/

A.T. PIERSON quote

Below is a quote from his writings about the Lord Jesus Christ, the son of the most High God.  It has been slightly rearranged for readability.    A. T. Pierson, [Before Spurgeon died, he asked AT Pierson to take his place. Modern Missions Pioneer] This precious Book tells us of one who resigned the throne and crown of heaven, exchanged the radiant robe of the universal King for the garment of a servant, descended to death, condescended to human want and woe and wickedness, lay in a lowly cradle in a cattle stall at Bethlehem, and hung upon a cross of shame of Calvary, that even those who crucified Him might be forgiven. Can you span the chasm between the throne of a universe and that cross? A crown of stars and a crown of thorns? The worship of the host of heaven and the mockery of an insulting mob? … There is nothing like it in history, not even in fable. How can we understand … ? A man with human infirmities, without human sin or sinfulness; poor, yet having at His disposal universal riches; weak and weary, yet having the exhaustless energy of God; unable to resist the violence and insults of His foes, yet able to summon legions of angels at a word or wish; suffering, yet incapable of anything but perfect bliss; dying, yet Himself having neither beginning of days or end of years?