June 10, 2012 … Consider the Outcomes While Building

Passage of the Day: Reference of Today’s Chronological Bible Study: 1st Kings, Chapters 5-6 [NIV] To study these chapters, go to this link - 
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Passage of the Day #2: Reference of Today’s Chronological Bible Study: 2nd Chronicle, Chapters 2-3 [NIV] To study these chapters, go to this link - 
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Highlight Passage: 1st Kings: 5: 12-14 :[NIV] … 12 The Lord gave Solomon wisdom, just as he had promised him. There were peaceful relations between Hiram and Solomon, and the two of them made a treaty. … 13 King Solomon conscripted laborers from all Israel—thirty thousand men.14 He sent them off to Lebanon in shifts of ten thousand a month, so that they spent one month in Lebanon and two months at home..
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Highlight Passage #2: 1st Kings 6: 7 :[NIV] … In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built. 

My Journal for Today: Now, after an interlude of chronological reading through the Proverbs, we come back to Solomon building God’s Temple, as covered in parallel passages in 1st Kings and 2nd Chronicles, linked above for your study. Today, in my journaling, I’m going to focus on two passages from the 1st Kings version, copied above.

And in 1st Kings 5: 12-14, I was impressed by the wisdom, concern, and sensitivity of Solomon as he recruited three times the number of workers needed, using many from neighboring lands (see the 2nd Chronicles version), which took the pressure off of the families in Israel at the time of this monumental temple-building task. So, often these days we see our governmental leaders having no sensitivity for the family structure when they plan for projects or tax the public to build something in our land. Solomon realized the truth – as the family goes, so goes the nation. Oh, … how I wish our politicos would get that message!

Then, in 1st Kings 6: 7 we read of just how much Solomon revered God in the building of His Temple, honoring the Lord by not having the noise of even one hammer to be heard in Jerusalem, the city of his father, David, as the project was undertaken and completed. All the stone work and building were done at a distance from Jerusalem and brought and assembled on-site to avoid noise in the city, which was primarily done to honor God. How often do we think of GOD FIRST when we’re building our temples [or lives]?

God’s word, in the New Testament, refers to our bodies as being God’s Temple (see 2nd Cor. 6: 19); and so, do we take the stewardship in the building of our physical temple as seriously as did Solomon when he was building God’s Temple? Unfortunately, I think we see (or personally experience) a lot of poor, noisy (i.e., sinful) construction techniques when it comes to the building of our bodies, which is the Temple of God’s Spirit for our lives. Should we not be treating our temple bodies the same way which Solomon treated the building of God’s Temple in his day?

I know, … I’m meddling!! … But I’m doing so out of personal conviction from today’s reading/study; because my human, sloppy default temple-building techniques are way too noisy with my gluttonous dietary habits and lazy exercise disciplines. How about you? Could we be building our body-temple as did Solomon, thinking first of God and His way of building and then being sure that the outcomes of the building were fashioned to consider the families of God?

That’s the message of conviction I get from today’s study; and I am praying to become a better builder of God’s Temple in my life.

My Prayer Today: … Lord, help me to build my body-temple as Solomon did Yours, … first with Your consideration and then being sensitive to the outcomes as they effect my family. Amen