The Temple

Good morning and welcome to Our Daily Walk.
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God had been very good to David. He was with him from the days of being a shepherd over his father’s sheep, to killing the giant Goliath to being king over Israel. God had blessed David’s life enormously.

2 Samuel 7:1-2, tells us that God provided a rest for David. His enemies were finally quiet. As he rested in his fine palace of cedar, David began to think about the house of God. Up until this point the worship to God had been done through the tabernacle, a tent where God met His people. David thought that God deserved a better place, a grander palace of His own.

At first, Nathan the prophet encouraged David to go ahead. But then the Lord came to him and told him that it would be David’s son that would be the builder of that temple.

1 Chronicles tells us that David made vast preparations for the temple to be built. He planned for the labor and provided the iron for the gates. Then he called his son, Solomon, and gave him the instructions for building the house of God.

In 1 Chronicles 22:7-11 he says:

My son, as for me, it was in my mind to build a house to the name of the LORD my God; but the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “You have shed much blood and have made great wars; you shall not build a house for My name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in My sight. Behold, a son shall be born to you, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies all around. His name shall be Solomon, for I will give peace and quietness to Israel in his days. He shall build a house for My name, and he shall be My son, and I will be his Father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever.” Now, my son, may the LORD be with you; and may you prosper, and build the house of the LORD your God, as He has said to you

Solomon did build that temple in Jerusalem and it stood for almost 400 years. The site of that temple was a prominent hill to the north in Jerusalem. It was this hill that David had purchased from Araunah the Jebusite in order to make a sacrifice to God. (2 Sam. 24:18-25). 2 Chronicles 3:1 identifies this hill as the place where Abraham had been willing to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Mount Moriah. This was indeed a special place.

But the people were not willing to be faithful. They used the temple for idol worship and stripped the valuables from it for their own purposes. Because of their wickedness and their refusal to repent, the city of Jerusalem and the temple were plundered around the years 597 B. C. and 586 B. C.

About 50 years later the Jews were permitted to return to Jerusalem and the new governor, Zerubbabel, led a work to rebuild the temple. This was about the same size, but not as ornate as Solomon’s.

When Herod the Great came to power in 37 B. C., he wanted to make Jerusalem even greater than it had been before. He undertook to rebuild the temple in a larger project than before. That construction took many years, and that temple was destroyed along with the city of Jerusalem in 70 A. D.

In fact, when Jesus was speaking of His resurrection in John 2:19-20, He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” He meant His body, but they thought He meant the temple. At that point the temple was not yet complete and had been under construction for 46 years.

But today that temple is gone and in its place we have a different kind of temple. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”

David had a vision of building a great temple for God. Solomon built that great and ornate place. But that temple was lost because the people forgot its purpose. Today, the spirit of God dwells not in a building on a hill in Jerusalem, but within the heart of those who believe. May we never forget its purpose in our lives.

On Our Daily Walk today, may we make choices today knowing that we are the temple of God. May we not do anything that would defile that temple.

Our thought for the day: “What greater calamity can fall upon a nation than the loss of worship.” Thomas Carlyle

May God bless you on your daily walk.

© Our Daily Walk, Mike Baker, 2007. Permission is granted to copy these articles provided they are not sold and the author's name and copyright are included.

Upon This Rock

Good morning and welcome to Our Daily Walk.

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For about three and a half years the disciples of Jesus walked with Him and learned from Him. Each had been hand chosen and had left all that they had and followed after Jesus.

These disciples were able to see the miracles first hand, and even were able to perform miracles themselves. They witnessed the enemies of Jesus as they attempted to take Him time after time and how Jesus always managed to escape because it was not yet His time.

In the end, one of them, Judas, would betray Jesus. Peter would deny knowing Him and all of them except John would scatter at his death.

These disciples had to believe that Jesus was the Son of God. They left their professions, their families, all they had and followed Jesus. But their faith in Jesus had to grow and mature over these three short years.

In Matthew’s gospel we find Jesus speaking to the disciples. In this chronology, He has just recently healed a great multitude of people, fed 4,000 people, had an exchange with some Jews who were demanding a sign from Him and then issued a warning to the disciples.

At this point Jesus asks the group, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” (Matt. 16:13) Their answers were John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or maybe one of the prophets.

Then Jesus asks them who they think He is. It was Peter who answered this question in verse 16 saying, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Christ is the English word for the Greek word, “Christos” which means “anointed one.” In Hebrew, the word is “Mashiach,” meaning “Messiah.” Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. Peter’s confession of this to Jesus prompts the following response in verses 17-19.

Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Peter’s confession that Jesus is the savior of the world, the Son of the living God, becomes what Jesus says is the foundation of the church that He will build. Without this foundation, the church would not exist.

Notice that Jesus said that He would build (future tense) His church. The word for church in Greek is “ekklesia,” which means the called out. It can refer to a local body of believers or as the entirety of the ones who are called out for that purpose, in this case, the church in a universal sense.

Notice also that Jesus says that the gates of Hades shall not prevail against His church. While at first glance we might think of this as a defensive posture, that the Devil and Hell will not be successful against the church.

But consider the use of the term “gate.” Gates are used to keep things either in or out—to confine some and to restrict others from gaining entry. Jesus mentions that the gates of Hades would not prevail against His church. Gates are not offensive weapons in a battle, but rather they are defensive. Jesus is saying that His church will be victorious by reaching into the ranks of the lost of this world. Satan will not be able to prevent the church that Christ built from breaking down his gates to reach the lost of this world.

On Our Daily Walk today, may we realize that Christ not only died for our sins but also built His church upon the confession that He is the Son of God. May we each seek to be a part of that church and to serve Him faithfully until death.

Our thought for the day: “If your religion doesn’t take you to church, it is doubtful if it will take you to heaven.”

May God bless you on your daily walk.

© Our Daily Walk, Mike Baker, 2007. Permission is granted to copy these articles provided they are not sold and the author's name and copyright are included.

Christ The Cornerstone

Good morning and welcome to Our Daily Walk.

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Do you know what a cornerstone is? It is a stone that is laid at a corner of a building to bind two walls together. It strengthens them. Spiritually speaking it is used symbolically as a sign of strength and prominence throughout the Bible.

Speaking of Jesus, Psalm 118:22-24 says, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the LORD's doing; It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day the LORD has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.”

That cornerstone is also seen as the foundation and Christ is the foundation of our faith. Peter quoted the passage in Psalms in Acts 4:11, and added in the next verse, “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

Jesus Christ is our foundation, the cornerstone of the spiritual building which is the church. Paul mentions this in Ephesians 2:19-22.

Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Notice the imagery there. No longer are we on the outside, but now we are in the household of God. This house has been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets and Jesus is the chief cornerstone. He is the point at which the entire building draws together, fitting one into another, and becomes the temple of the Lord.

The church is not only depicted as the temple of the Lord, but also as a living organism, a body. 1 Corinthians 12 deals with this is some detail, even to the point where some body members were jealous of others. And Paul gives more insight into the workings of the body in Ephesians 4:11-16.

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head — Christ — from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

Christ is the chief cornerstone of the building, the temple of the Lord. He is also the head of the body, the church. All that we do within the body of Christ is to be done so as to help that body to grow and perform.

Notice that God has engineered this spiritual body to be self-sustaining and self-supportive. The whole body is joined and knit together. Every joint supplies the needs of the body. Every part does its share effectively and the body is caused to grow and to enjoy the encouraging benefits of love. And all of this is possible only with Christ as the head of the body, the chief cornerstone of the temple of the Lord.

In 1 Peter 2:4-8, Peter calls upon believers to be as living stones and build up our spiritual houses by our holy actions. He also refers to the cornerstone that the people had rejected. To those unbelievers he said that Jesus had become a “stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.” But to the believers, “He is precious.”

Psalm 118:22-24 says, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the LORD's doing; It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day the LORD has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.”

On Our Daily Walk today, may we think of ways that we can be more effective in “doing our share” so the body of Christ may increase.

Our thought for the day: “What you are is God’s gift to you. What you make of yourself is your gift to God.”

May God bless you on your daily walk.

© Our Daily Walk, Mike Baker, 2007. Permission is granted to copy these articles provided they are not sold and the author's name and copyright are included.

Count The Costs

Good morning and welcome to Our Daily Walk.
Audio version at http://tinyurl.com/3a56lv

On a winding road in rural Kentucky there is a house that for years had always caught my attention and begged a question. For well over 20 years this house had been under construction. It never seemed as if it would ever be finished.

As a teenager I remember driving past that house on the way to my grandparent’s home. The house was constructed and mostly finished. But outside the house there remained a pallet of unused bricks, a pile or two of sand and some construction equipment.

Time after time I would drive by that house and notice that not much if any progress had been made since the last time. Bricks were laid only partially up the sides of the house and were left in an obvious state of incompletion. Before long, the house was being lived in, even though the exterior of the house was incomplete.

After 17 years of marriage we moved back into that area and once again I found myself traveling that winding road. And guess what I saw? That’s right. The house that had been left unfinished when I was a teenager was still in a state of incompletion even then. Amazing.

All kinds of thoughts crossed my mind both as a teen and later as an adult. How could anyone build a house and never finish it? Did they run out of money? Were there no people around who were skilled in laying brick? Surely they were aware of this problem. Perhaps they just got discouraged and gave up. I’ll probably never really know the reason for this being left undone.

Unfortunately, it is pretty common to see things that people start and never finish. For example, a person may make a new year’s resolution to lose weight and exercise more.

“Do you want to lose 30 pounds and be in the best shape of your life?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Do you want to be filled with energy?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Do you want to get up an hour earlier each day to jog or walk a mile or two?”

“Uh, no. You mean I’ll have to exercise. I’m not sure I want to do that.”

Sometimes we see the benefits to reaching a goal, but are unwilling to pay the price to reach it. In our spiritual lives this also can happen. Jesus tells about the importance of counting the costs of discipleship in Luke 14:26-33

If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it — lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, “This man began to build and was not able to finish.” Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.

Friends, over 90% of the population of the United States believes in God and most also believe in heaven. Yet, the majority of these people are unwilling to count the costs and pay the price of discipleship to Jesus Christ.

To be a disciple one must be willing to elevate Christ above family and friends and be willing to forsake all that one has in order to be a part of Christ. Most everyone agrees that the goal (heaven) is worthy. But not all will count the cost of getting there.

On Our Daily Walk today, may we use this moment to thank God for His love and for His word. May we also reaffirm our commitment to be loyal to Him knowing that the cost of disobedience is far greater than the cost of discipleship.

Our thought for the day: “Walking with Christ helps us to enjoy our standing with Christ.”

May God bless you on your daily walk.

© Our Daily Walk, Mike Baker, 2007. Permission is granted to copy these articles provided they are not sold and the author's name and copyright are included.

Foolish Or Wise?

Good morning and welcome to Our Daily Walk.

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Have you ever looked back on some action and thought or said, “Now that wasn’t very smart of me, was it?” I think everyone has those moments in their past where a poor decision is realized as being foolish.

In fact, many people can look back on their foolish choices, correct them, learn from them and then use those situations to teach others how not to act. Everyone makes foolish choices from time to time. But the foolishness isn’t permanent unless we refuse to make corrections.

My great-grandmother was around 90 years old when she made a very foolish decision. She lived with my grandparents and one winter day they had gone to the store for groceries leaving my great-grandmother at home. A snow had fallen a day before and then that white snow received a thick covering of freezing rain.

My great-grandmother, all 4 feet 9 inches of her, decided that the birds needed some bread to eat. Instead of just opening the back door and tossing out the bread to the birds, she decided, foolishly, to take the bread out to where the birds are.

She took one step and promptly fell down the steps on to the concrete patio below. She broke her hip. She was now below the level of the door and unable to reach the handle to open it. For about 2 hours she remained on the icy snow until my grandparents returned home and found her.

She had her hip fixed and recovered nicely from her accident. I remember her telling the story and laughing about how silly she was to make such a poor decision. “I don’t know why I thought those birds couldn’t just fly to where I was instead of me thinking that I had to take the bread out to them.”

Part of her problem, of course, was that her foundation or footing was not good. And because that foundation was slick and unsure she tumbled down and suffered.

The Bible speaks of poor foundations as well. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says the following in Matthew 7:24-27.

Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.

In the religious world today many people want to have religion or church but do not want to build it upon the foundation of Jesus Christ and His words. Instead of building on the rock of our Redeemer, they are choosing to build their faith on the sands of their own self-importance.

Instead of doing the will of Jesus they follow after their own will. When the storms of life beat down upon those churches they will fall because they are not built on the right foundation.

Our children learn about this principle from the song about these two builders. You remember the lyrics, I’m sure. With a catchy tune, the children learn that the wise man’s house stands firm after the storm. But because the foolish man’s house was built on a sandy foundation it could not withstand the pressures of the storm. That house fell.

The admonition of the last verse of the song may not be fully understood by children, but should be heeded by all of us. “Build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ.” “And the blessings will come down.”

Friends, it really just comes down to a simple choice. What will you do when you hear the words of Jesus? Will you hear them and do them like the wise man? Or will you hear them and then not do them like the foolish man?

On Our Daily Walk today, may we determine that should we ever make a foolish choice regarding God that we will change our ways quickly and learn from our mistake.

Our thought for the day: “A foolish man uses wisdom to explain his foolishness; a wise man uses foolishness to explain his wisdom.”

May God bless you on your daily walk.

© Our Daily Walk, Mike Baker, 2007. Permission is granted to copy these articles provided they are not sold and the author's name and copyright are included.

Pride And Confusion

Good morning and welcome to Our Daily Walk.

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Human pride can put a quick end to genuine religion. Pride distorts reality by placing the credit on man instead of God. Pride causes man to want to follow his own paths instead of following what God directs him to do. Pride leads to destruction.

But some people will stubbornly refuse to submit to God. Their prideful ways will continue to cloud their decisions and will give them the false hopes that they somehow are good enough just because of who they are.

Peter addresses the contrast between pride and humility in 1 Peter 5:5-7.

Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.

The phrase “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” is an adaptation from Solomon’s words in Proverbs 3:34. James also cites this passage in James 4:6, and in James 4:10 he says, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”

Pride and humility do not mix well together. A choice between the two must be made. If we choose pride, God will not lift us up.

In Genesis 9:1 after the flood was over God blessed Noah and his family. He said, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” However, not all of the descendents of Noah were in favor of filling the earth. In fact, some of them became filled with human pride and decided to disobey God and elevate themselves in the process.

They decided to build a tower that would reach into the heavens. Several of these “ziggurats” or “temple towers” have been found in the region of Babylon which is now modern Iraq. These were constructed with a wide base and progressively smaller levels on top. A temple was usually placed at the top.

Here is the account of their pride and how God dealt with their pride and actions by adding confusion. This is from Genesis 11:1-9.

Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. Then they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the LORD said, "Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

In Hebrew, the word “babel” means confusion. These disobedient descendents of Noah were out to make a name for themselves and to defy God’s command to be fruitful and fill the earth. They didn’t want to leave where they were.

By confusing their language God put an end to the building of the tower. The people could no longer communicate with one another so they ended up going off into different directions grouped with people who could speak their language.

Unfortunately it seemingly did very little to restore worship to the true God. The region of Babylonia is known for being very polytheistic, that is, they worship many gods. Oh how human pride clouds the mind and causes man to choose unwisely.

On Our Daily Walk today, may we recognize the real threat of human pride and may we think today about ways that we can combat it.

Our thought for the day: “A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.” Henry Ward Beecher

May God bless you on your daily walk.

© Our Daily Walk, Mike Baker, 2007. Permission is granted to copy these articles provided they are not sold and the author's name and copyright are included.