Casting Pearls- Have you cleaned out your temple?

Our bodies are temples in which God lives. Not only are we supposed to be living temples of God, and a representative of God to the world around us. In 1 John 3:24 we see this proof. God dwells in us who dwell in Him. The Holy Spirit reveals to us whenever we begin to stray into things which will make our temple defiled in the sight of God. The Spirit’s conviction lets us know God lives in us. 

We all become agitated with others in some way or another in our lives, we talk meanly to our children, to our co-workers, to our neighbors, to our family members. We are god’s temple and representative in this world, and we may feel as though we are justified since we are told by the Bible to be righteously angry at sin, and to not ‘spare the rod’ with our children. 

What we must remember, is that as we are temples in our bodies, the other people we are agitated with are temples of God too. Our children are temples as well. Everyone is a temple in some state of being built just as we are not yet built. The temple of our lives is still under construction. We need to fight not to be overcome with pride or selfishness that our temple is further along with construction than someone else's. The devil will use any opening we give him to attack us. we must always stay under the protection of The Lord. 

As we are temples, and they are temples, what are we to do? Well as always I refer to the Bible for all the answers. In Romans 12:1-2 the Bible tells us to present yourself both to God and to man as a Holy Acceptable temple, not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the Word of the Lord, so that we may be acceptable to the Lord. We only have control over ourselves. We cannot make anyone else do what we think is right. 

The key word in the previous sentence is ‘think’. In our minds, we see things one way, in their minds they see things another way. We are responsible only to do what is right in our minds, not their minds. If we feel we need to excuse what we have done, it probably is wrong. If we feel that what we want to do is wrong to our own conscience it is probably wrong. Everyone sees things in a different way, they will react differently. What we must do is be willing, as God is, to be understanding of others seeing things differently and act accordingly. 

What we need to do is to ‘crucify the flesh’ as is spoken of in Galatians 2:19-20. We need to be dead to the flesh and the desires of the flesh. The flesh is controlled by the Law of God that can never be lived up to. The Lord gives us the Holy Spirit to live inside us when we are saved so we will be acceptable to  the Lord and to others as a representative of God. The problem comes when we have more than one face we show to the world. We come to Church and say ‘God Bless You’ and ‘Praise the Lord’ but when we go home, we are totally different. A ‘poor at best’ representative of Christ. It is common in people to be this way. We put our best face on when in public, but our real face when we think no one is looking. That is why a persons true character is shown when no one is watching. The whole world would be better off if we all realized that God is always watching, He sees everything we do and knows everything we think. We can hide nothing from God.

We also need to take into account how our representation of Jesus will appear to other people or our children. Will we influence others or our children to be good temples for God to inhabit in the future? That is exactly what God wants us to do. Make them acceptable vessels for God to inhabit. The best way to make others an acceptable vessel is to make ourselves an acceptable vessel and show them how wonderful it could be.

Casting Pearls - Manna or Mammon?

                          If we look in the fifteenth chapter of Exodus we will find the Children of Israel contending with Moses over provision for food then water while they were in the desert after leaving the bondage they were in while in Egypt. They conveniently forgot all that God had done for them up to that point, the ten plagues, the dividing of the waters of the red sea, they seemed to think God had done all this just to turn around and forget them. God brought them out of Egypt to take them to the promised land and prosper them. Through their actions, and lack of belief, they turned an eleven day journey, as most people could have done it, into one that took them forty years.
                          Forty years was what was accepted at the time as what made up the normal generation. I believe in part God wanted the Children of Israel to take that long so the generation that entered the Promised Land would be raised to depend on God for their provision each day. Due to the Children of Israel's doubts and fears when they arrived at the Promised land, they were prevented from going in, and had to wander in the desert forty more years. Very few of the people were left who even remembered the exile in Egypt by that time. In fact Moses himself would die before entering the Promised Land, due to his getting angry and not waiting for God.
                         Back to chapter 15, we find the Children of Israel having just come from the miracle of God parting the Red sea for them to cross, and its closing back up to destroy the army of Pharaoh. The people rejoiced at what God had done for them in one breath, and then turned against Moses and God with the next. They were thankful for what God had provided, yet almost immediately they began to think only of themselves and want Moses and God to provide food and water for them in the desert. God heard the Children of Israel murmuring and told Moses that he would provide them meat to eat in the evening, and bread in the morning.
                          That evening quail covered the camp, and the people had quail for the evening meal, and the next morning, after the dew had dried up a 'round thing' was left covering the ground which looked reminiscent of coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey. The people of Israel called the bread, Manna and as instructed by God and Moses, they were to gather up only what they needed for the day, and no more. This was a test from God, to see if their own greed and laziness would cause them to not follow His directions. The people who gathered more than they were supposed to and tried to save it up for the next day found it going bad and having worms in it.
                        This was to teach the Children of Israel that God would provide for them each day the needs they had for food, and any attempt they made to hoard up more, would only result in loss.  People are in much the same position today. We try to hoard up things for our future, and only watch whatever we have wasting away by the world we live in.
                        I recently learned that retirement accounts were being taken over by the governments of Poland and Greece, and the same thing was being discussed here in America. The Governments were saying that the money was only given to us to use for a time and all money ultimately belonged to them. We try to pass on things to the next generation, but things and money are nothing but creations of man and have no real value except what we put on them. Life and memories and knowledge are the only things we can really pass on to the next generation.
                       The Israelites continued to murmur against Moses and God in spite of God's provision and that is ultimately why an eleven day journey took eighty years total. We should do our best not to be as hard headed as the Children of Israel, and learn before we waste our entire lives trying to hoard and pass on the fleeting things of this world. God says to trust Him to provide your needs our faith in God's provision, will be counted for us as righteousness, as the Bible says about Abraham in Romans 4:3. The more we murmur against the Lord and fight His control and provision for our lives, the longer we will wander in the desert, or wilderness of our lives.