Way below the surface, far beyond the deepest part of the heart, further still than the place soul divides with your inner most being, in the holy of holies where Jesus and the Spirit commune with your spirit, God has recreated you into something beyond human. Humanity has a beginning and an ending, but you do not. The merger, having taken place well within your being, where Jesus abides with you and you with Him, has no place of origin. No start, no finish. Your life in Christ exists in a state of free-fall, into the infinite reaches of forever. Somewhere inside of you, eternity readies for the catch.
Yet a world that began today like it does every other day, with sunrises and alarm clocks, has a start and a finish. Things to do, deadlines to meet; rising, working, resting—your life lives repetitively. Daily, time shaves off a sliver of life, but the loss to you goes unnoticed. But sliver adds to sliver, one day after another, and the weight on the scale of time begins tipping against you. Life is running out. The days with their daily grind have crept along, but the years have left you behind.
Temporal and eternal, finite and infinite, dying but alive, you exist in two very different realms. You live here and there, Earth and heaven.
It’s tricky living in two places simultaneously. Two houses, in two very different parts of the country, demand the same amount of up keep. Double the work, double the effort, double the hit on the bank account, every decision and detail must be thought through and taken care of twice.
Yet even in this duality of working and thinking, one place always gets favored over the other. Whichever home you treasure the most, your heart resides there indefinitely.
Lifetime is all the stuff you experience while here on Earth. Between birth and death, your life continues for as long as you have time. But once time runs out, life runs out too.
The very moment when this happens, everything left behind freezes as is. Unfolded laundry remains unfolded, unfiled papers remain scattered, the bank account has the same number of zeros, or simple just a zero. All that filled your days and seemed so important comes to an abrupt halt, while you disappear into eternity.
To be in this world but not of it is to simply live in the temple God created in you. In the days of the New Testament, the temple existed in three parts, an outer court, inner court, and, separated from by a relatively thin veil, the inner most court or holy of holies. One time a year, God would enter the holy of holies and descend upon the mercy seat, while the chief priest made sacrificial atonement for sin. To enter the holy place without sacrifice meant certain death.
When Jesus gave up His spirit on the cross, the veil separating the holy place from the inner court, in essence separating God from man, split in two. With the ultimate sacrifice for sin now made by Jesus, God no longer confined Himself to a temple made by man, nor did He constrain Himself into a once a year appearance here on Earth. Sin no longer a barrier, God got to work building His own temple, without human hands, a new place of earthly dwelling.
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 1 Corinthians 6:19
When the Bible says your body is now the temple, the word used for temple means holy of holies. Believe it or not, from God’s perspective, the most holy place on Earth is inside of you, the place where Jesus and the Spirit co-mingle with your spirit. You are the very temple made by the hands of God.
In Jesus, God has not just made you for heaven. He has made you into the place where heaven lives on Earth. Inside of you, eternity becomes one with time. This means time can now be used for eternal purposes. Time becomes the way for you to fill-up eternity with heavenly treasures. All your efforts on this Earth can now count for something. You can forever dismiss the fear of leaving behind a life full of ashes.
God’s mercy and grace and unconditional love, they all fill up the temple. Assurance, security and total commitment greet you at the temple’s entrance. The satisfaction and meaning you want from your Christian life can be found alive and real, waiting for you inside the temple.
From the temple comes the invitation to experience the life YOU’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO LIVE.
The Father, the Son, and the Spirit do not roam about this Earth looking for a place to dwell. Long ago, before uttering the first word of creation, the plan was to make a second home suitable for the trinity, a place on Earth for the great I AM. And though for a time God dwelled in a temporary house made by man, when it came time to select a permanent dwelling place, God chose you. In Christ, He re-made you into what He wanted. And for the holiest of all to live inside of you, in His eyes, could you be anything less than holy?
Something remarkable is happening. In the temple God calls “you,” moment-by-moment Jesus is abiding. He is abiding in you, while at the same time you are abiding in Him.
Mysteries from the eternal are known in the temporal.
Work done in the temporal is stored in the eternal.
All of life has meaning, because the meaning of life (Jesus) never ends.
You’ll never find what you want by looking for it in spiritual activity. You can’t find God’s presence and acceptance in something you do. You can never find God somewhere other than the place He found you.
To go to the temple, you simply must look inward, into your own spirit, the dwelling place of the Eternal One. When you do, you’ll find Jesus inside, awaiting your arrival.
About David Stephens
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