Destiny

Sign seen in the hall at Memorial Hermann Hospital:

Watch your thoughts

Because they become your words

Watch your words

Because they become your actions

Watch your actions

Because they become your habits

Watch your habits

Because they become your character

Watch your character

Because it becomes your destiny

Not Made With Hands

Moses built the tabernacle and God made His abode above the Mercy Seat. Solomon built the temple and God moved with the Ark of the Covenant into the Holy of Holies. This Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians about 586 B.C. The Ark of the Covenant, along with the Mercy Seat, was lost forever. Not even Indiana Jones could find and restore it.

The temple was rebuilt seventy years later by Zerubbabel and the returning exiles. It was renovated by Herod beginning in about 20 B.C. and was demolished by the Romans in 70 A.D. But God had already left the building.

In John 2:19, Jesus said "destroy this temple and in 3 days I will rebuild it." The Jews said "Herod's been working on this temple for 46 years and you think you can rebuild it in 3 days?"

The Greek word Jesus used for temple was "naos" which refers, not to the temple complex but to the inner sanctuary, the place where God had once made his dwelling. It is the same word Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 6:19 where he explains that the holy place today is not a temple made with hands but that our body is the temple (naos) of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus was telling them and us that He was in the process of ushering in a new order, that God was getting ready to change His address again.

In John 4, Jesus told the Samaritan woman that the time was coming and now was that worship would not be identified with Jerusalem nor Mount Gerizim nor North Main Street, but that worship would occur in spirit and in truth.

Our beautiful bricks and stones are neither the temple nor the dwelling place of God. The only possible justification for owning them is to wear them out in service to "the least of these."

As hard as you might try, you can't "go to church" because you are the church.

To ascribe to our building any significance beyond a convenient place to assemble and to serve people is to miss the new order Jesus ushered in when He rebuilt the dwelling place of God with His resurrection.