The Living Temple

The Living Temple

By Apostle Felix

48  “However, the Most High God does not live in temples made by human hands, as the prophet said: 

49  ‘Heaven is my throne room and the earth is but a footstool for my feet. How could you possibly build a house that could contain me?’ says the Lord Yahweh. ‘And where could you find a place where I could live? 

50  Don’t you know that it is my hands that have built my house, not yours?’ 

Acts 7: 48 – 50

Our God does not dwell in temples that has been built with human hands or does He dwell in specified locations or places. The Israelites confined the worship of God to a location, such as the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. It is a practice we see even today when Christians go on pilgrimage to Israel for spiritual experience. Some even go to extremes of desiring to get baptized at the same spot where Jesus was baptized. All that are religious jargons that lead to nothing. Jesus is not confined to locations. One can encounter Jesus in Jerusalem, in Tokyo, in Windhoek, in Saigon, in any place when one decides to allow Christ to come and dwell in one’s life. There is a place God cannot resist to come and dwell. And that is your life. He is more than willing to come and abide in you forever. You are the living temple God so desires to inhabit. There is no other temple God can occupy but the human temple.

23  Jesus replied, “Loving me empowers you to obey my word. And my Father will love you so deeply that we will come to you and make you our dwelling place.

John 14: 23

The desire of God is not to build Him a temple made of bricks and dirt, but He desires that He occupies human bodies as His dwelling place. This God, who is infinite, has decided to live in a mortal man. This is grace. There is no space that can contain God, not even the universe can, but yet has decided to come and dwell in man. The God of all creation, the God Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the God who has become our Father and lives in us forever. Why is it then so important to understand that. Understanding is important, because it allows us to fully partake of the reality of God’s promises in our lives. The limiting factor to experiencing the fullness of God in our lives is the lack of understanding. Why do people frequent certain places for freedom and move from one church to another looking for miracles is because of lack of understanding of who is in their lives. One cannot be with the God that possesses all things and be stranded and grounded in life. No, even when life gets tough, one still knows whose you are. It is not the stillness of the sea that determines who you are and whose you are, but the knowledge of the one in you. The storm raged, but Jesus was sleeping. He did not sleep because He was not aware of the storm. He was aware of the storm, but He was more aware of He was and whose He was.

31  What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

Romans 8: 31

Knowledge is a tower of refuge. There is safety in knowledge. Jesus said that the knowledge of truth shall set us free. Knowledge is light that has the power to dispel darkness. In the beginning, God spoke light in the midst of darkness. He did not rebuke the darkness to disappear but only overwhelmed it with the intensity of light. We do not drive out darkness when we enter a dark room  by rebuking it, but by simply switching on the light and darkness has no option but to give way. The best way to deal with the devil, the prince of darkness is simply to flip on the switch of the word of God and allow light to shine forth. Darkness can never resist light. Coming to knowledge that God lives in you, deals with all manner of darkness you can ever think of. Peter put it in this way, ‘submit to God and resist the devil, and he shall flee from you.’

7  Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

James 4: 7

Resisting the devil lies in our submission to God. Submission is an attitude of humility to accept the word of God for our lives. Submission is not weakness, but simply aligning ourselves with God’s word. Submission is the acknowledgement of the Lordship of Jesus in our lives and also the awareness of His presence. You are a living temple. God’s dwelling place. God’s habitation. You belong to God, and you are His property. His name is in you. You are His anointed with a banner on your life that says:

15  … Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm. Psalms 105: 15