Thursday August 23, 2012

Get together with a few believers and seek to       provide for the poor and needy some time this week.

 

Read Exodus 25:8-22, Psalm 132:13-18, Ps 139:7-12, John 2:19, 1 Peter 2:4-7

 

I think I would take offense if anyone but God suggested that I was one brick in a building of many bricks. And yet as God’s Word describes the church as a building the idea of God’s presence comes to the fore, not the density of the bricks and mortar. There really is no need to get offended.

 

In the Old Testament God began His dwelling with mankind and regularly met with him in the cool of the day. Sin, however, necessitated a barrier between God and mankind. Without this barrier, sinful humanity would be burnt to a crisp in His majestic presence. It was for our benefit that God and man have been separated. The gap was bridged by the presence of the Tabernacle and Temple in the Old Testament. God chose to allow His Name to dwell in these buildings.

 

Even so, Israel continued to flout God’s law and God’s ways. She was determined to be independent and autonomous. She would not bow down to God but would prostitute herself with many gods. The consequence was the complete destruction of the Temple, a symbolic action depicting that God had left His people. Even the return from exile and the rebuilding of the temple could not fulfil the dreams of the nation and the promises of the Lord Almighty. Something greater was needed.

 

Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days’. Jesus was asserting that His body was the Temple and that coming to God was not a physical act but a matter of the heart (Jn 4:23). The physical temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70AD. It was completely dashed to the ground.

 

But God had greater plans. The Temple would be rebuilt in the hearts of men and women and children who loved the Lord. No longer would a physical building suffice. God would dwell in the hearts of those who choose to respond to His love and grace, those called by the Lord Himself. As such the Church is the place in which God’s Spirit dwells and its fulfilment awaits the time of the return of the Lord when the dwelling of God will be with men. He will be their God and they will be His people.

 

When our Lord talks of the church as a building, the physical building is not in view. At no time should we use the word Church to refer to the bricks and mortar or wood and panels that we spend time in together on Sonday. The Church, the building of God refers to the people within the building. It is a reference to those who have received the Holy Spirit. The physical has been replaced and fulfilled by the Spiritual.

 

When you attend Church each Lord’s Day do you attend with the reverent expectation of meeting with your Lord and Saviour?
Prayer:

¨ Pray that God would be powerfully present among His people, your church, this Sonday. With God present, pray that God’s Word would be powerful and active. Pray that He would comfort, challenge, rebuke, correct and heal through the powerful preaching of the Word.

¨ Pray that all of the relationships within your church would be holy and righteous and that God would be mending broken relationships and brining forgiveness, healing, wholeness etc where needed.