Lesson 12: God's Holiness Generates a Reminder, part 5

You might think the viewpoint of the Tabernacle we have been reading about is great with all the symbolism about Jesus and how He gets us to God, but why is this important to us today? After all, the Tabernacle no longer exists as a place of worship. The point is that it not only shows us how to get to heaven, but also how to live life on earth before we get to heaven, because Jesus calls us Christians today the actual temple of God!

1 Corinthians 3:16-17 - "Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple."

If we have even the slightest idea what it means to be a Holy Temple of a Holy God, our behavior changes.

A young man received a gift from his mother who had just visited him in his college home. She sent him a picture of Jesus, which he hung on his wall because he loved her. Slowly, as the days went on, he began to remove other pictures he had hanging on his wall, pictures of things he had found exciting as he stepped away from home, out on his own. Finally, only the picture of Jesus remained on his wall. What made the difference? As we begin to see Jesus more clearly, just as the Tabernacle is a picture of Jesus, we allow the Spirit to change our life to become who He wants us to be.


We think that God exists for us instead of we existing for Him. We think He is to serve our every whim instead of us serving His. This is why the third great crime for many believers today is that we have lost our obedience to God because we do not believe in the Holiness of God. Please understand this: when we get saved, the Bible says we no longer belong to ourselves. We become His temple. We are now what the Scripture calls, "Priests of God." Just like the priests of old, we are to serve the Holy Living God in the new traveling Tabernacle, our bodies.

The same God whose Holiness caused people to shut their mouths, fear for their lives, and fall flat on their faces is inside of us! The same God whose Holiness has a zero tolerance for sin and thus instantly killed people for the slightest bit of compromise or a tiny deviation from His will or even a little lie is inside of us! That means everything we see, He sees. Everything we listen to, He listens to. Everything we say, He hears it all. Everything we do, He watches it all, good or bad. This is of great importance. Knowing this will spur on a lot more obedience than just a picture on the wall.

People of God, when are we going to realize that the only hope to win others to Christ is revival, God working in us. We must remind ourselves that God's is Holy, Holy, Holy!

* What does it mean to you to be the “temple of God”?