Today’s readings.. Leviticus 12,13 / Psalm 113,114 / 2 Corinthians 5,6&7
Remember how the disciples showed Jesus the grandeur of the Temple (Mark 13 v.1,2) and he shocked them by saying it was all going to be destroyed! Now see how today’s reading in 2nd Corinthians shows how the temple was to be replaced. There is a new kind of Temple where God wants to dwell and that is the most important thing, the absolutely vital thing – in the life of a believer.
Paul writes, “we are the temple of the living God, as God has said …” [2 Corinthians 6 v.16]. But remarkably, Paul then quotes the words of God that we are going to read later this month in Leviticus. And what did God say to Moses that Paul felt he should quote in his final letter to the Corinthians?
“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go from out from their ( i.e. the unbelievers) midst and be separate from them … then I will welcome you and I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me says the Lord Almighty.” [v.16-18]
Now notice what Paul adds after quoting these words from Leviticus 26 v.11,12. “since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God”[Ch.7 v.1] “Fear” of God? We think of that as meaning ‘in the awe of’ what God must be!
Paul is saying that we, our minds and hearts, are God’s spiritual temple – in which he seeks to live! We must each ask ourselves – what occupies our minds, what are the things we meditate upon?
Now it is vital that we are positive in our reaction to this fact – how utterly wonderful to have God in our very being, watching over us! In answering this question we see how important it is that we read God’s word every day. Take time to note how at the beginning of Chapter 6 Paul quotes from Isaiah 49 v.8 – “now is the day of salvation” and think of the hymn Islip Collyer wrote,
We know the end, we know the way,
And some with life he will endow,
Shall we be will him on that day?
We make the answernow.
