God had King Solomon build a temple. During the dedication of the temple the glory of the Lord filled the temple. All the people present knelt with their faces to the ground as they worshipped and thanked God. (2 Chronicles 7:1-3)
Later the Lord appeared to Solomon and told him that the temple was supposed to be about more than the rituals of animal sacrifices. It was supposed to be about God’s people humbling themselves, praying, seeking God’s face, and turning from their wicked ways. (2 Chronicles 7:14) It was supposed to be a house of prayer.
Instead of gathering in the temple court for prayer, people gathered to buy and sell animals for ritual sacrifice. Jesus drove the animal sellers out of the temple court because they had turned what God intended to be a house of prayer into “a den of thieves” (Matthew 21:13) When Stephen was preaching just before He was killed for his radical and consistent focus only on the risen Jesus, Stephen said: “But it was Solomon who built a house for Him. However, the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands.” (Acts 7:47-48)
It’s interesting that about 40 years after Jesus was crucified, risen from the dead, and living in His devoted followers, that the temple and the whole city of Jerusalem was leveled to the ground by the Roman army just as Jesus had predicted. (Matthew 24:2) Like Jesus told the woman at the well: “A time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.” He told her that instead “True worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” (John 4:21-24)
God doesn’t want His people to think that Jerusalem or a physical building is a special place to worship. He wants us to know and daily experience worship flowing from our innermost being like rivers of living water (John 7:38-39) wherever we are.
Paul taught that a Christ-follower’s body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:19) Paul called this “the word of God in its fullness,” and “the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:25-27)
If you will humble yourself, pray, seek God’s face, and turn from your wicked ways, God will release such healing within you and through you that it will be contagious and spread throughout your land. Christianity is better caught than taught. Seek God until you become contagious with Christ. Put your faith in and radically surrender your thoughts, feelings, and desires to the control of the risen Trust in the presence and power of the living Jesus not in money, politics, or religious organizations.
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