My relationship with God is the most important thing to me. After spending a lifetime of going my own way, I have decided to make a change and walk with God. “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” You walk with God through faith. I believe that when I walk with God the world sees a different person.
So I have decided to build a temple to God. Not some structure of sticks and stones, but a unity of my spirit and body. The temple will be an offering and dedication to God that will proclaim His message to the world around me so that my actions will please Him. In other words, out of this temple I will serve God and the same temple will be my shelter in a scary world.
The temple will be build out of core truths, absolutes that are stripped of all distractions and debates. What do I really believe. The foundation is a child building a temple to his Father. This in not an effort to earn myself into the relationship. Instead it is a recognition that I am an heir in all eternity.
How will I know that my building of the tiny temple is going well? There is an old business adage that says: “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” So what could I measure on this project. It is said that “the truth will set you free.” If the tiny temple is being built on core truths, I should experience freedom. I am thinking of freedom from such things as fear, worry, and bitterness. If the work on the tiny temple is going well, I should see those things disappear and notice peace coming into my life.
A living, creative, active and powerful thing, this faith. Faith cannot help doing good works constantly. It doesn’t stop to ask if good works ought to be done, but before anyone asks, it already has done them and continues to do them without ceasing. Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an unbeliever...Thus, it is just as impossible to separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from fire!
"Luther, An Introduction to St. Paul's Letter to the Romans". Luther's German Bible of 1522 by Martin Luther, 1483-1546.
COMMUNITY
My temple is not some shrine built on the top of some remote mountaintop accessible to only the very few. Instead my temple is being build in the midst of a community: family, friends, acquaintances, neighbors, and a host of other people I connect in my daily commerce in this world. I have to figure out how I am going to deal with this, but in the interim I share what God has to say (hint Isaiah):
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness[a] will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.