Temple of the Most High

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

TEMPLE OF THE MOST HIGH

Acts 7:44-50

44 "Our forefathers had the tabernacle of the Testimony with them in the desert. It had been made as God directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen. 45 Having received the tabernacle, our fathers under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It remained in the land until the time of David, 46 who enjoyed God's favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.   47 But it was Solomon who built the house for him. 48 "However, the Most High does not live in houses made by men.

As the prophet says: 49 "'Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me?       says the Lord. Or where will my resting place be? 50 Has not my hand made all these things?'  

NIV

Stephen’s history lesson is complete with this last statement and we are going to see his charge against the Sanhedrin and their response next. But for now we should be able to see several interesting points that could be a life lesson for us. First we should note that God instructed Moses to the exact design of the Tabernacle. Between then and now somehow men got involved in the design of tabernacles, temples or churches. Although the tabernacle was designed to represent the presence of God among the people, it was not a place for people to gather in to worship God. And with the quote from the prophet it certainly appears God is not interested in residing in any building designed and built by men. By this we might conclude that although we call our church the house of God, it is definitely not. That is not to say when we gather together in worship, he is not there, for God is omnipresent, but he does not dwell in any building. The church is but a church, a building of wood, aluminum, steel, stone, siding, or whatever, but God is the creator the designer of this earth which is his footstool. Some people might believe the church is holy ground or someplace special, where God dwells, but they are sadly mistaken. The church is but a building designed and build by men for men, God has nothing to do with it, not one bit of most churches, if not all, was designed by God. The point of all this is that we are to worship our Lord God within the temple he has built, us. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, he dwells within each of us, and as such we are living stones, we are being built into the temple of God. We are the true church of God, together we are the church designed and built by God. The second thing we should note is that although David found favor with God, that God even testified that he was a man after his own heart, David did not get to build the temple. It is not that Solomon was any more a perfect man than David was, but David was a man of war and it seemed out of place for him to build the temple, a place to represent God being at peace with his people. Perhaps we could learn once again to be a people who make every effort to live in peace with all men. Although we do not actually conduct a war against other people, well except in cases of national wars, we do conduct a series of hard feelings, hurt feelings, bitterness, unforgiveness, anger, criticism, judgmental attitudes, along with perhaps even a bit of retaliation against our fellow believers. If we are, in fact, the temple of the Most High, we should truly be the temple of the Most High.