PLEASE READ THIS FIRST: 1 Kings 5-6
What do you sense the Lord saying to you in this passage?
“This temple you are building, if you follow my decrees…” (1 Kings 6:12-13)
What kind of temple could we build for God?
Does God even want a temple, a fancy building to live in?
God is not interested in our costly sacrifices or fancy buildings.
God wants a relationship with us, to live among us.
“I will live among the Israelites and will not abandon them.” (1 Kings 6:13)
As I read these words, I am reminded how God wants to live in me.
God is not looking for my fancy clothes, big offerings, or pious words.
What matters is whether my heart devoted to humbly loving and obeying God.
As ‘God with us’, Jesus shows us the temple of God that matters.
His life was not impressive in a worldly way but in how he lived.
He calls us to build our hearts and lives as temples for God.
Where we obey his decree to love God and people.
Where we show the world what God is like, how God is love!
This is the kind of temple the Spirit of Jesus is building in us.
PRAYER
Lord, I am God’s temple, and how I live is my worship. May I represent you well to the world, with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control!
“Praise be to the Lord today, for he has given David a wise son to rule over this great nation.” Hiram respected the new King Solomon and through their friendship the Sidonian people were blessed. The temple Solomon built was to be a temple to the God of Israel – by whom all peoples on the earth would be blessed – out of the promises of God to Abraham and his family – to David and his line – Jesus was born and by Him we all are blessed. May people be able to have the same respect and appreciation of us as believers as Hiram did for Solomon- help us Lord to be good ambassadors of the Kingdom!
Do this and live. Live and do this. And I will live among. God with us. Emmanuel. I am reminded as a small child of a saying whn we folded our hands in a specific way – ‘Here is the church, here is the steeple and here are all the people.’ The people serving the Lord. We are the church. You are the church. God lives within us for we are His church/temple. And others need to see that by our words and deeds. Living for Jesus. Growing in the Lord. Bing built up in Him through the working of the Spirit.
I am the church! You are the church!
We are the church together!
All who follow Jesus,
all around the world!
Yes, we’re the church together!
1. The church is not a building;
the church is not a steeple;
the church is not a resting place;
the church is a people.
(Refrain)
2. We’re many kinds of people,
with many kinds of faces,
all colours and all ages, too
from all times and places.
(Refrain)
3. Sometimes the church is marching;
sometimes it’s bravely burning,
sometimes it’s riding, sometimes hiding;
always it’s learning.
(Refrain)
4. And when the people gather,
there’s singing and there’s praying;
there’s laughing and there’s crying sometimes,
all of it saying:
(Refrain)
5. At Pentecost some people
received the Holy Spirit
and told the Good News through the world
to all who would hear it.