Who Do You Think You Are - A Temple?
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (NIV)
Do you know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God. You are not your own - you were bought with a price.
1 Corinthians 3:16 (NIV)
Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and God's Spirit dwells in your midst.
Don't you know ...don't you know... sounds as if God expects us to know that we are temples.
I've not been in many buildings called a Temple but a few months back I was sitting in temple-like Birmingham Cathedral wondering at its size and magnificence and tidiness and, to be honest, finding it not a particularly comfortable environment. Is that the image to hold in my head when Paul says followers of Jesus are, individually (1Cor 6:19) and collectively (1Cor 3:16), God's temple?
Let's ask Jesus how he sees God's temple. He couldn't be clearer when he drives out the thieves and fraudsters in Jerusalem's temple. 'You've turned God's house into a den of thieves!" he roars, 'when it's meant to be a House of Prayer.'
That's it! As the gift of God's Spirit inhabits me, I need to be a place that is sacred, dedicated to God and above all else a house of prayer. Do you find prayer a struggle at times? I do. Do you get distracted when trying to pray? I do. Do you pray often with a very low level of belief and trust? I do. Do you want to be better at praying? I do.
Let's persevere. If we ask, the Spirit within us will lead us into many different ways of prayer. Probably some you've never tried yet, waiting to be discovered. Some may blow your socks off! And even if I know myself to be a prayer-beginner, when I join my prayer-life to others in the church, we become together God's temple and something very powerful is born. Something that will change things forever, for God's good purposes.
If Gas Street Church (or any church) is not a House of Prayer then it is not fit for God's purpose.
Prayer — We have a 'Reset' week coming up in two weeks to review our corporate spiritual life as 'the body of Christ'- let's ask God to make us his Temple, a House of Prayer.