Fixing God's Temple

If you have ever owed a home then you know that there is always the possibility of something breaking or malfunctioning.  It may be the furnace, the sink, the toilet the roof and the list goes on and on.  If its not one thing then its another.  Oh the joy of home ownership!   What happens when something breaks ?   We have to make a trip to the hardware store and purchase that part that we need to repair it.  With a faucet they sell these faucet kits. With a roof they sell shingles.  With a toilet they sell these toilet repair kits.   Each item requires its own little repair kit to fix it.  These repairs can be time consuming and expensive.   

What happens when your spiritual house gets broken?  Then bible says that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit.  When something breaks within us it makes it difficult for the Holy Spirit to dwell within us.   

Do you not know that you are God's temple and the God's Spirit dwells in you?  1 Cor 3:16  God who made the world and all things therein, seeing that He is Lord of Heaven and earth, dwells not in temples made with hands.  Acts 17:24 

Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God.  You are not your own;  you were bought with a price.  So glorify God in your body.   1 Cor 6:19-20   

How do we know something is broken within us?  The Holy  Spirit will tell us.   He acts like a smoke alarm.  If the building is on fire He will sound the alarm within you.  He does this in differently in each person.   One person may feel very grieved while another person may feel feel their stomach quivering while another person may not be able to sleep at night and they just don't know why.  God has a way of getting our attention.  He knows how to bring things to the surface that we are trying to excuse and deny through our own self deception.   Sin is self deception.   But the wages of sin is death.  Sin always looks pretty and feels good and seems so right for that moment in time but wide is the road of destruction for your soul.  
For what partnership have righteousness and iniquity?   Or what fellowship has light with darkness?   What accord has Christ with Be'lial?  Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?   What agreement has the temple of God with idols?  For we are the temple of the LIVING GOD; as God said, I will live in them and move among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.  2 Cor 6:14-18  

The Holy Spirit will fix the breaks within us if we allow Him to do the work.  He will not force Himself upon us.  We have to allow Him to fix the problem.  Some repairs will take more time than others.  If there has been a break from our childhood it takes extensive workmanship on the Holy Spirit's part.  Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of God.  Just as you once yielded your members to impurity and to greater and greater impurity, so now yield your members to righteousness and sanctification.  Rom 6:19     Now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the return you get is sanctification and its end, eternal life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Rom 6:22-23
May the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all men, as we do to you, so that He may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.  1 Thess 3:11-13  

Jesus our "Soma Tonga"

"When walking through the rural roads of India, you will occasionally come across a post with a sturdy shelf about shoulder height. These posts are called Soma Tonga, which means 'resting place.' As people travel on foot, they can stop at a Soma Tonga and place their heavy load on the shelf for relief. Once rested, they can continue their journey.
One can easily see why Christians in India call Jesus 'My Soma Tonga.' "
Published in Mchenry's " Stories for the Soul"


While you are traveling the dusty roads of life have you experienced the rest that only Jesus can give to you?   Isn't it time that you rested from every burden and worry?  I'm inviting you to come to Jesus right now and give him your burdens and hurts.  He loves you so much more than you will ever understand. 
 
Jesus said " “Come to me, all of you who are weary and over-burdened, and I will give you rest! Put on my yoke and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Matt 11:28-30
 
Part of resting in Him is truely trusting Him to take care of you no matter what the circumstances are that you are being faced with.  
When David speaks about Jesus he says, ‘I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken; therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad; moreover my flesh will also rest in hope, because you will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you allow your holy one to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life; you will make me full of joy in your presence."   Acts 2:25-27
 
To whom did God swear that they should never enter his rest? Was it not these very men and women who refused to trust him?  Yes, it is all too plain that it was refusal to trust God that prevented these men from entering his rest.   Hebrews 3:18-19

I know it might be hard to face what your going through right now and your circumstances might look very hopeless right now but if you simply give Him your burdens and fears and rest in His love for you you will begin to experience that precious peace that surpasses all understanding.   A peace and rest that only He can give you.  


Do not rest the weight of your confidence on the transitory power of wealth but on the living God, who generously gives us everything for our enjoyment. Do good and be rich in kindly actions, be ready to give to others and to sympathise with those in distress. Your security should be invested in the life to come so that you may be sure of holding a share in the life which is permanent. 1 Tim 6:17-19





Are you feeling overwhelmed?  Sometimes its only when we come to end of ourselves that we are able to let go and LET GOD do His work in our lives.  Have you ever considered that maybe he wants you to feel overwhelmed so you will stop looking to your own abilities and start looking at the Greatness of our God?     The early apostles felt what your feeling right now.  

"At that time we were completely overwhelmed, the burden was more than we could bear, in fact we told ourselves that this was the end. Yet we believe now that we had this experience of coming to the end of our tether that we might learn to trust, not in ourselves, but in God who can raise the dead.

It was God who preserved us from imminent death, and it is he who still preserves us. Further, we trust him to keep us safe in the future, and here you can join in and help by praying for us, so that the good that is done to us in answer to many prayers will mean eventually that many will thank God for our preservation.  2 Cor 1:8-11


Even Jesus and the apostles needed time to rest.  " The apostles returned to Jesus and reported to him every detail of what they had done and taught. “Now come along to some quiet place by yourselves, and rest for a little while,” said Jesus, for there were people coming and going incessantly so that they had not even time for meals."  Mark 6:30     When was the last time that you went away to rest ?   Sometimes you just need to get away from the hustle and bustle of people around you and find a quiet place that only you and the Lord know about. 

Now since the same promise of rest is offered to us today, let us be continually on our guard that none of us even looks like failing to attain it. For we too have had a Gospel preached to us, as those men had. Yet the message proclaimed to them did them no good, because they only heard and did not believe as well. It is only as a result of our faith and trust that we experience that rest.   Hebrews 4:1-2 

There still exists, therefore, a full and complete rest for the people of God. And he who experiences his real rest is resting from his own work as fully as God from his. Hebrews 4:9

Let us then be eager to know this rest for ourselves, and let us beware that  one misses it through falling into the same kind of unbelief as those we have mentioned.  Hebrews 4:11  So brace up your minds, and, as men who know what they are doing, rest the full weight of your hopes on the grace that will be yours when Jesus Christ reveals himself. Live as obedient children before God. Don’t let your character be moulded by the desires of your ignorant days, but be holy in every department of your lives, for the one who has called you is himself holy. The scripture says: ‘Be holy, for I am holy’.  1 Peter 1:13-16

Be patient, my brothers, as you wait for the Lord to come. Look at the farmer quietly awaiting his precious harvest. See how he has to possess his soul in patience till the land has had the early and late rains. So must you be patient, resting your hearts on the ultimate certainty. The Lord’s coming is very near.  James 5:7-8 

Have you made Jesus your "Soma Tonga" today ?  

The Season of Lent

If you are a Christian who is not familiar with this terminology. Not all Christian churches observe Lent. Lent is the Christian observance of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Holy Thursday.  These are the 40 days in preparation of Easter.

It is a season of soul-searching and repentance. During Lent many make it a goal to give up some form of luxery as a form of penitence.  Some even fast.   The tradition of Lent is man-made but there are biblical roots that can be found in some scriptures in the bible. 
For instance, the practice of repentance and mourning in ashes is found in

2 Sam 13:19
"And Tamar put ashes on her head, and rent the long robe which she wore; and laid her hand on her head, and went away, crying aloud as she went." 

Esther 4:1-3  
"When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai rent his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, wailing with a loud and bitter cry; he went up to the entrance of the King's gate, for no one might enter the King's gate clothed with sackcloth.  And in every province, wherever the King's command and decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and most of them lay in sackcloth and ashes. " 

Job 2:8
"And he took a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and sat among the ashes. "  

Daniel 9:3
"Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and supplications with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.  I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, O Lord, the great and terrible God, who keepest covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from thy commandments and ordinances; we have not listened to thy servants the Prophets, who spoke in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. "