January 26, 2018
Ezekiel 47:1
The man brought me back to the entrance to the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was coming down from under the south side of the temple, south of the altar.
CONSIDER THIS
Awakening always means reorientation with first things and fundamental truths. We have talked about the preeminence of the Word of God and the priority of the Spirit of God. Today, we come back to the fundamental truths of the house of God.
It’s important, though, at the outset that we not confuse house of God with a building. It is so easy to make the leap from the Old Testament temple to the New Testament church and to equate temple and church as specific, fixed places. The house of God is now the church and the church is the people of God.
We must let go of our thinking that awakening must happen in the building we call the church. Sure, our gatherings in our church buildings are important but they are neither the source of awakening nor the means of its spread.
Now is the time to recover this truth: the house of God is the people of God. The people of God are the temple of the Holy Spirit. As long our idea of house equals a building, we will be limited to thinking awakening happens somewhere other than here at some other time than this.
When the Word of God meets the Spirit of God in the midst of the people of God we have the essential ingredients of awakening.
THE PRAYER
Come Holy Spirit and impress upon us the truth that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and together we are living stones being built together as a spiritual house. Put us together as a little room for your presence a place where your love and power can flow into and through us for others. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
THE QUESTIONS
- What will it take for us to reconceive of ourselves, together, as the house of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit, and not be so locked into the church-as-building thinking?
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J.D. Walt, is a Bond Slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. jd.walt@seedbed.com.
One Response
Good morning,
I read the Seedbed Daily Text for my morning devotionals and either hear or read it. I’m not receiving the email, nor am I able to access the audio recording since Pastor Al-Rikabi’s series ended.
There seems to be a 24-hour delay in receiving the email and recordings.