The Tabernacle of God has been
built and all the duties of the priests and the people have been
assigned to them. I think a lot can be said about the Tabernacle
and God willing I will one day write about the significance and
symbolism of the Tabernacle and subsequently the Temple of God. But
for now I would just like to highlight one thing.
The Tabernacle was hundreds of
years later replaced by the Temple of God. Solomon had the
privilege of building God's first Temple. And what a Temple it was!
I think never in the history of mankind has there been a building
like this. For the construction for the Temple, David donated 112
tons of gold and 262 tons of refined silver, and on top of that,
the people donated 188 tons of gold, 10 000 gold coins, 375 tons of
silver, 675 tons of bronze and 3 750 tons of iron. Can you imagine
that? It is too much to comprehend for me! And to build this Temple
Solomon employed 30 000 laborers to fetch the cedar and cypress
timber from Lebanon, he also enlisted 70 000 common laborers, 80
000 stone cutters and 3 600 foremen to supervise the work. Wow, can
you imagine co-ordinating basically 183 600 people on one project?
I battle to co-ordinate 8 in my husband's business, never mind 183
600!! You can most definitely see a Divine Hand here in ensuring
that His home gets built and gets built right. And to top it off,
at the dedication of the Temple Solomon sacrificed 22 000 oxen and
120 000 sheep to God. What a dedication! I cannot even begin to
comprehend it!
And today God calls us His
Temple. We are now His Temple.
'We are His house, built on the
foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is
Jesus Christ Himself. We who believe are carefully joined together,
becoming a holy temple for the Lord.' Ephesians 2:20, 21
'Come to Christ, who is the living
cornerstone of God's Temple. He was rejected by the people, but He
is precious to God who chose Him. And now God is building you, as
living stones, into His spiritual temple.' 1 Peter 2:4, 5
How amazing that God considers us
worthy enough to be His Temple here on earth! He traded the
magnificence of Solomon's Temple for us. He chose to rather use us,
than a physical Temple. And I realized this morning, that one of
the reasons why the Temple was so glorious was to show us how
glorious we are. We are truly glorious, because God's Spirit lives
within us. We need to shine and attract people to God's Temple and
therefore we are not allowed to look down upon ourselves and to
frown at our appearance. No, we should shine and glitter like gold
and silver for all to see.
Plus another thing I learned was
that in Solomon's day, people had to go to the Temple to worship
God. But today, we as the Temple, go to the people. In other words,
no matter where you are today you must walk in the realization that
you are the Temple of God going out to the people. So if you are
standing in a queue, you are the Temple, if you are sitting in a
waiting room, you are the Temple, if you are at work, you are the
Temple, if you are out in a restaurant, you are the Temple and so I
can go on. And when you have a deep revelation of that, you will be
able to make a difference to the people around you. I heard of an
old lady that had such a revelation of this, that she believed that
merely by touching someone, she could bring healing/restoration.
After all the woman suffering from hemorrhage for 12 years merely
touched Jesus and she was healed. And we are the Body of Christ
walking this earth and the same can be true of us.
Think about this and realize what
is true of you. You can make a difference merely by your presence.
Believe it and you will see the impact it can have.
Thank you God that You deemed us
worthy enough to be Your Temple here on earth. Thank you for the
privilege. Please help us to have revelation of it and to walk in
Your truth. In Jesus Name. Amen