Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a You Tube video of Crystal Lewis and Ron Kenoly singing Beauty For Ashes, declaring the glorious hope - and reality - of God’s desire and ability to rebuild His temple, our lives, created for His glory.
Highlight Passage: Lamentation 5:16, 21 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Jeremiah, pleading for God’s people to God, for the Lord to restore what sin has destroyed of God’s temple.
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Highlight Context – Lamentation 5:8-22 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… The lament of Jeremiah for God to rebuild what sin has destroyed.
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Reference Passage #1 - Ezra 9: 9 [NKJV] …
9 He has granted us new life to rebuild the house of our God and repair its ruins.
… Ezra’s joy in seeing how God can rebuild the Temple which He had built for His own glory.
Reference Passage #2 - 1st Corinthians 6:18-20 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Our bodies are God’s temple, which, because of our sin, must be rebuilt by God’s Spirit upon our salvation and through our sanctification.
My Journal for Today: Our Daily Bread author, Tim Gustafson, used an historic event in Jerusalem to illustrate his ODB teaching today. He wrote: In the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem you’ll find Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue [see attached photo]. Built in the 19th century, the synagogue was dynamited by commandos during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. … For years the site lay in ruins. Then, in 2014, rebuilding began. As city officials set a piece of rubble as the cornerstone, one of them quoted from Lamentations: “Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return; renew our days as of old” (5:21).
And the image of that synagogue being rebuilt, reminded me of God’s desire (and His glorious power) to rebuild His temple in the lives of sinners who’ve become Saints through their faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ and their (our) willingness to surrender to His Spirit, implanted in the hearts [i.e., “temples”] of these believers to have God’s temple rebuilt for His glory.
Paul declared (see 1st Cor. 6:18-20) that our bodies are the “temple of God,” and that Christians must do all we can to let God rebuild HIS Temple into His own image. And I’ve seen this rebuilding process taking place in the lives of Christians who’ve repented after long patterns of sexual sin; and surrendered to God’s rebuilding process, … where God’s Spirit reshapes the life and temple in which He resides, to begin to conform to the image of Christlikeness. It’s a beautiful process to witness.
And at anytime we can yield, as today’s song declares, to God’s rebuilding process and let the Lord take us from the ashes of destructive sin to the beauty of God’s rebuilt temple, …we are living for His glory. Jeremiah promised God’s rebuilding process after the destruction of God’s Temple in Jerusalem. And we know from history that this prophesy and restoration came to fruition in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah (see the highlight passages and that of Ezra 9:9). And we can see God rebuild the temples of our lives, if we’re willing to yield to God’s will and follow His ways from His word.
How about it, dear one? Are you up for some “temple” rebuilding today? … So, let’s get to it!!
My Prayer Today: O, Heavenly Father, … Lord, reshape Your “temple,” my very life, into Your image … rebuilding in obedience to Your will and Your word today. Amen Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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