Topic: God things
It was good to be in the House of the Lord today.
My husband had a great sermon.
The old covenant had the Law and the Temple, everything so laid out for God's people....for only God's people. If Gentiles wanted to come, they were allowed into the outer court to hear teaching. They could never draw near, but God did promise to remember them for their faith and devotion to Him. (Isaiah 56:3-8)These outer courts were the very ones that Jesus cleansed with a braided cord, driving out animals and turning over tables of the men who charged the people to get appropriate coins for the Temple offerings.
Here we are, all nodding our heads. I was thinking, wow, this is interesting and I was writing it all down.
Then the zinger:
Charles parallelled Jesus' cleansing of the Temple, driving out the things that didn't belong there....WITH...Him wanting to cleanse today's Temple (our body, mind, spirit) from all the things that do not belong there....SO....that we can really worship Him in spirit and in truth, not just 'do church', but to draw near, actually into the Holy of Holies because He has made us His holy priesthood of believers.
See, we are all free to draw near to the Lord now. All of the Jews and the Gentiles can freely come....and when we do, WE become God's holy Temple, as He comes to dwell within us through the Holy Spirit. We are free from the restrictive Laws and from having to go to Jerusalem to offer our yearly sacrifices. No one is kept out now...But with great freedom comes great responsibility and caution.
We need to make our aim pleasing the Lord, because we want to hear from Him and truely follow Him according to His way, not ours.....it was very powerful. I couldn't swallow by the end. LUMP CITY in my throat. I am going to keep this on the front burner of my mind so that the changes can take place...
....the repentance....prayer
....the replacing of my ways with His...meditate on His Word
....the shoving over of the tables, stockpiled with things that don't belong in this Temple....listening to the Spirit instead of quenching it.
.....I needed that today.....
Today's hymn seemed appropriate too:
Brethren, we have met to worship and adore the Lord our God;?Will you pray with all your power, while we try to preach the Word??All is vain unless the Spirit of the Holy One comes down;?Brethren, pray, and holy manna will be showered all around.
Let us love our God supremely, let us love each other, too;?Let us love and pray for sinners, till our God makes all things new.?Then He’ll call us home to heaven, at His table we’ll sit down;?Christ will gird Himself and serve us with sweet manna all around.
