“Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who has fulfilled with His own hand what He spoke with His mouth to my father David, saying, ‘Since the day I brought My people Israel out of Egypt, I have not chosen a city from any tribe of Israel in which to build a house so that My Name would be there. But I have chosen David to be over My people Israel.’
I encourage you to read 1 Kings 8: 1-51 and then read this meditation.
In the New Covenant we are the Temple and Jesus is the one who builds the Temple. David represents a covenant with God that we would be a nation (see 1Peter 2:9). David represents our faith in the Kingdom, our submission to the kingdom, and the authority (ability) given to humanity to walk with God in God’s ways through the righteousness that comes by faith.
Now consider –
‘Since it was in your heart to build a house for My Name, you have done well to have this in your heart. Nevertheless, you are not the one to build it; but your son, your own offspring, will build the house for My Name.’
It is Jesus, not Solomon, who truly is Son the builder of the Temple. (1 Kings 8:17) It is good that we have it in our hearts to build this temple of our lives in Christ and with Christ and through Christ.
We are this temple in the church, in our family, in our community.
Now the LORD has fulfilled the word that He spoke. We have built the house for the Name of the LORD, (our house of faith) the God of Israel. (20)
Solomon prayed that God would achieve the following through the Temple, and we now pray that God will achieve that through us. “But will God indeed dwell upon the earth? Even heaven, the highest heaven, cannot contain God, much less this temple (me) that I have built. Yet regard the prayer and plea of Your servant, O LORD my God, so that You may hear the cry and the prayer that Your servant is praying before You today. (28/29)
We may feel unworthy, but God has chosen to dwell in us and to reveal Himself to the world through us. May our prayers be heard by God. When someone sins then may God hear from heaven and act. May God judge according to His righteousness. (31/32)
When we are defeated before an enemy because we have sinned may we return to God and confess, then may God hear from heaven and forgive our sin. (33/34)
When the skies are shut and there is no rain because we have sinned against God, and when we pray and confess God’s name, and when we turn from our sins; then may God hear from heaven and forgive our sin. Then may God send rain on the land. When famine or plague (pandemic) comes upon the land, or blight, or mildew, or locusts, or grasshoppers, or when our enemy besieges us in our cities (think of the civil unrest), whatever plague or sickness may come, then may whatever prayer or petition we make—each knowing our own afflictions and spreading out our hands toward this temple (our life in Christ) be heard by God and may God forgive and act, and repay each man according to all his ways, since God knows the heart. (37/38)
For we are God’s people and God’s inheritance; God has brought us out of sin, may God’s eyes be open to the pleas of His servants (us) and may God listen to us whenever we call to Him (51)
For You, O Lord GOD, as Your inheritance, have set us apart from all the peoples of the earth, as You spoke through Your servant Moses when You brought our fathers out of Egypt, so you have brought us out of our slavery to sin that we might be your temple. That people will look to our faith in you and know that there is a God who loves His creation and will save it.
My prayer for you is that you will mediate on this and seek God’s strength to be the TEMPLE of the Holy Spirit – carrying the Name, bearing the Name, and being a blessing to the Almighty Sovereign God.
And that your faith will be something that others can look to as a signpost that leads them to God.
Be assured of my prayers.
Fr. Andrew
