The Sanctuary

Daily Reading: Exodus 24-25

Scripture Focus: Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst. (Exodus 25.8)

Devotional Thought: When Lana and I moved to Bethel in 2009, we built a home with lots of rooms, including a basement. We then worked hard over the course of several years to finish the basement. Why do that for two people? I think you suspect the answer. We did it so that our children and grandchildren could come and be with us! We wanted a space where we could all get together.

In the Old Testament, God wanted a space where he could get together with his family - the people of Israel. So, he instructed them to build him a sanctuary. They did so and called it the Tabernacle, or tent of meeting. It was a very sacred place. God met them there.

In the New Testament, however, that changed. God now 'tabernacled' among men and women in Christ. Christ identified himself as the temple and brought God close.

But now that Christ has ascended to the Father, the sanctuary has changed yet again. God still desires to have a sanctuary that he may dwell in the midst of his people, but that sanctuary is now the Church, the body of Christ. The Apostle Paul wrote, "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3.16). When we neglect the church, we neglect the sanctuary and we miss a significant opportunity to be in the presence of God.

So, let us 'make God a sanctuary.' Let us be faithful to meet God in the Church.

Prayer: Jesus, thank you for building me into your Church. Help me to fully enter and support the sanctuary where you dwell, not a temple made with human hands, but the Church of the living Christ. Amen.

Psalm of the Day: 1 Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth! 2 I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, 3 things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us. 4 We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done. 5 He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, 6 that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, 7 so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; 8 and that they should not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God. (Psalms 78:1-8)