Too Big For A Building

“But who is able to build a temple for him, since the heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain him? Who then am I to build a temple for him, except as a place to burn sacrifices before him?”
2 Chronicles 2:6

David’s son Solomon was preparing for the construction of a temple for the Name of the Lord his God and this week’s passage comes from a letter Solomon was sending to King Hiram of Tyre asking for construction materials for the project. Solomon, in my opinion, makes a very telling statement in that letter – that his God, my God, your God, our God, the One God is really too big for a building.

So if God is too big for a building made of wood, stone, and precious metals – what can hold Him? The Apostle Paul makes it pretty clear in his letters that it is a body. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian believers he writes: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). Paul encouraged gentile believers in Ephesus with this: “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation if the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” (Ephesians 2:19-22).

Did you catch that? Paul makes it clear that the true temple of the God of the universe is built of people – not wood, stone, gold or silver and it is held together by His Son. God has chosen to use the hearts, minds and souls of mankind to build His dwelling place. Our desperately limited existence on this planet becomes the conduit of His life changing power when we are together.

We each bring something to this living, breathing, growing dwelling place of the Lord. All of our life experiences are harnessed and made pure by the blood of Christ allowing us to take the living God into a world desperately in need of understanding, love, mercy, grace and the soul healing that only come through Jesus.

So this week gather with a few or with many of your fellow believers, be encouraged and equipped by one another and the Word of God. Gather in all sorts of places because wherever you are it is the people of God that make it a church. Then go out and do your part, use your gifts to add daily to His dwelling place.

Remember that without followers of Christ, that structure of wood and stone is just a building. We, His people make it a church because we are the church and it should be a church with doors and arms thrown open wide.

A Prayer
Father – Forgive us for the times we make church about a building. Help us to remember always that You are far too big for a building, that you require a body instead – one that moves and breathes and most importantly grows. Help us to heed Your word and never give up meeting together. May the actions of Your church bring glory to You and draw others to Your heart so that they too might be added on to Your dwelling place. In the name of Jesus, who is the head and cornerstone of His people the church, we pray – Amen.