Storage and Sacrifice
This semester, my friends and I have been studying the book of Nehemiah, an Old Testament read that is not nearly as popular as it should be. It is one of my favorite books of the Bible because of its relevance. Just change a few names and tweak a few details and you will find a story very much like your own - a story of brokenness and how God redeems what has been lost. Nehemiah's story is like a treasure chest tucked away in the middle of the Old Testament, ready to be explored so that riches may be uncovered.
Last night, we finished our Bible study by reading and discussing the last chapter of Nehemiah, and I want to share with you some of what we discovered. The following passage is from Nehemiah 13, which tells about several reforms that Nehemiah instituted for the people of God in Jerusalem in order that they might be more holy. One such reform was this:
This makes me think about the New Testament passages that tell us that God no longer lives in temples built by human hands (Acts 17:24), but in the hearts of believers. Our bodies are the temples in which God dwells (1 Corinthians 6:19). But how often do we use these temples, like Tobiah did, to store our personal junk?
This personal junk - some may call it "baggage" - is the bitterness we carry from struggle, the emotional mess left over from being hurt, the temptations that we can't seem to get rid of, the weight we can't seem to let go of, the burdens that we lay down at Jesus' feet and then keep picking back up again. Sometimes we create our own baggage, and other times it is just handed to us. Either way, it is junk that we don't want but don't know what to do with. So what do we do? We store it deep down in our hearts, sometimes so deep that we think it is buried enough to be gone for good, never to resurface again...until it does. We store personal junk in the temple of God.
If we can't store it or bury it deep enough, then what do we do with this mess that we carry? The good news is that the temple is not a place of storage; it is a place of sacrifice. We don't have to let our personal junk pile up in storage, defiling the dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit. Instead of storing, we sacrifice these things that we have been holding onto for far too long. We watch them burn up as God purifies us from the inside out and rids us of the impurities that do not belong to us. The junk no longer weighs us down. The shadows no longer linger over us. We are God's temple, and we desire holiness.
Mother Teresa said, "We must become holy, not because we want to feel holy, but because Christ must be able to live His life fully in us."
God "sits as a refiner and purifier of silver" (Malachi 3:3), sanctifying us and making us holy so that He may fully dwell in our bodies, which are His temple. His house is not a place to clutter with our personal junk, but a spacious, wide-open place in which every corner is free for His use and purposes. It is not a place of storage, but a place of sacrifice so that God may dwell there fully in His holiness.
Last night, we finished our Bible study by reading and discussing the last chapter of Nehemiah, and I want to share with you some of what we discovered. The following passage is from Nehemiah 13, which tells about several reforms that Nehemiah instituted for the people of God in Jerusalem in order that they might be more holy. One such reform was this:
"Before this, Eliashib the priest had been put in charge of the storerooms of the house of our God. He was closely associated with Tobiah, and he had provided him with a large room formerly used to store the grain offerings and incense and temple articles, and also the tithes of grain, new wine and oil prescribed for the Levites, singers and gatekeepers, as well as the contributions for the priests. But while all this was going on, I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I had returned to the king. Some time later I asked his permission and came back to Jerusalem. Here I learned about the evil thing Eliashib had done in providing Tobiah a room in the courts of the house of God. I was greatly displeased and threw all Tobiah’s household goods out of the room. I gave orders to purify the rooms, and then I put back into them the equipment of the house of God, with the grain offerings and the incense" (v. 4-9).In order to get the full picture here, I encourage you to pick up the whole book of Nehemiah and give it a thorough reading...because the whole story is just excellent! But here in this passage, Nehemiah has discovered that Tobiah has been using the temple to store his stuff. Basically, Nehemiah tells him, "Get your personal junk outta here! This is not a storage place!"
This makes me think about the New Testament passages that tell us that God no longer lives in temples built by human hands (Acts 17:24), but in the hearts of believers. Our bodies are the temples in which God dwells (1 Corinthians 6:19). But how often do we use these temples, like Tobiah did, to store our personal junk?
This personal junk - some may call it "baggage" - is the bitterness we carry from struggle, the emotional mess left over from being hurt, the temptations that we can't seem to get rid of, the weight we can't seem to let go of, the burdens that we lay down at Jesus' feet and then keep picking back up again. Sometimes we create our own baggage, and other times it is just handed to us. Either way, it is junk that we don't want but don't know what to do with. So what do we do? We store it deep down in our hearts, sometimes so deep that we think it is buried enough to be gone for good, never to resurface again...until it does. We store personal junk in the temple of God.
If we can't store it or bury it deep enough, then what do we do with this mess that we carry? The good news is that the temple is not a place of storage; it is a place of sacrifice. We don't have to let our personal junk pile up in storage, defiling the dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit. Instead of storing, we sacrifice these things that we have been holding onto for far too long. We watch them burn up as God purifies us from the inside out and rids us of the impurities that do not belong to us. The junk no longer weighs us down. The shadows no longer linger over us. We are God's temple, and we desire holiness.
Mother Teresa said, "We must become holy, not because we want to feel holy, but because Christ must be able to live His life fully in us."
God "sits as a refiner and purifier of silver" (Malachi 3:3), sanctifying us and making us holy so that He may fully dwell in our bodies, which are His temple. His house is not a place to clutter with our personal junk, but a spacious, wide-open place in which every corner is free for His use and purposes. It is not a place of storage, but a place of sacrifice so that God may dwell there fully in His holiness.
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