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PREPARING THE TEMPLE
Whose temple are you?

A Commentary by Constance Vanides

“Then Peter said, ‘Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you:
In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.’”
(Acts 3:6)

So said Peter to the lame man begging at the Gate Beautiful. What was it that Peter, John with him, had that he could give to the crippled beggar?

If we go back a few days before, in Acts 2 we find Peter, an ordinary man, a fishermen, had just received the Promise of the Father, the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Power to heal, given at his Pentecost experience, was then imparted to the 40-year old man, lame from birth. His feet and ankle bones strengthened, the man, not only rose up, but was able to walk, then leap and praise God!

This supernatural miracle, occurring outside Herod’s temple, was the beginning of Peter’s power-filled ministry offered to others, telling the good news, and causing another miracle of 5,000 people to repent and become believers! What a great example of “Power Evangelism”! Peter was showing others that he indeed was the “temple of God,” as Paul the Apostle spoke of later: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16)

Let’s move back in time before the first temple was built (960 BC). King David spoke these words:

    “I had it in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and for the footstool of our God, and had made preparations to build it, but God said to me, ‘You shall not build a house for My name…It is your son Solomon who shall build My house and My courts; for I have chosen him to be My son, and I will be his Father.’”

    “Then David gave his son Solomon the plans for … all that he had by the Spirit, of the courts of the house of the LORD, of all the chambers all around, of the treasuries of the house of God, and of the treasuries for the dedicated things…” (1 Chronicles 28:11, 12)

And David began preparing for and gathering the materials that would be needed for the most ornate, elaborate construction ever offered to God in which He was to dwell. David offered the finest silver and gold in great quantities, bronze, iron, wood, onyx stones and other glistening precious stones and marble slabs in abundance. His example caused others to offer willingly and consecrate themselves to the LORD from their hearts.

David’s preparation for building the temple parallels the believer’s preparedness today to build his personal body into the “temple of the living God.” What an awesome thought, that the all powerful God would deign to dwell in a temple not made with hands, but in our own mortal bodies!

Have you prepared yourself for this? Just as King David gathered all the riches of his kingdom as materials for God’s house, we now have the powerful riches of God, the Holy Spirit, available for us to build the kingdom of the living God. With every show of Holy Spirit power, we tell newcomers who God is and bring them into the kingdom!

God still gives us the material we need in abundance. We have it at our disposal, if we but recognize what we’ve already been given. What are the “building blocks” we need so as to develop our bodies into a living holy temple? David used silver and gold in preparing for the building. We have the gifts of the Holy Spirit to freely first receive and then to offer in building up the church—the body of Christ.

We can sit and wait endlessly at our own “gate” to the temple. Or, we can accept what God has provided for us to become His temple, entering in with leaping and rejoicing that we are found worthy to house the living God!

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© Constance Vanides