For the past three years we have been on a discipleship journey, through iDiscipleship. We have approximately 400 students that are actively participating in the discipleship platform. It has been an amazing journey.

Sometimes the books we read can be difficult to get through (hello, Ezekiel)! Recently we read through the books of I & II Kings. Those are two books that I really enjoyed reading, because of all the stories. Kings has great examples of people who served God, and examples of those who did not.  In I Kings 5 &6, we read through the story of Solomon building the temple of God. I am always amazed when I read that story. If you are able to, I would love for you to put this newsletter down, and go read those two chapters.

Solomon spent seven years building the temple. He worked on getting the best laborers, with the finest materials. Nothing was to be spared for God’s temple! He made agreements with neighboring kingdoms, contracts with skilled laborers, and trained those that needed training. This temple had his highest priority. What struck me was the intricate detail that he put into the design of the “inner sanctuary” (6:19). He used fine woods and craftsmen to build the outside of the temple, but once he started on the inside of the temple, the word “gold” became standard! Everything was forged in gold, gold overlaid, or beaten gold. It was also very precise with the size and spacing of everything in that inner sanctuary. He held nothing back!  While the entire temple was a creation of art, and was built with great care, the inner sanctuary was crafted with great precision.

While I was reading this passage, I was drawn to the fact that we are all the “temple” of God. God has created us in His image, and the N.T. tells us that we are the temples of the Holy Spirit. Solomon gives a great picture of how we are to develop our inner sanctuary! See, he spent a great amount of time in the detail of the inner sanctuary, which was a place that would only be seen by the select few – the high priests and God!

See, too often in our world, people focus on the exterior. We want to make sure that we look like we are close to God on the outside. We want others to think that we are really spiritual, and that we have our act together. We spend so much time on the exterior and we totally ignore the interior. Whereas, the interior is our holy place! It is the place in our lives where God dwells. My question for all of us is simple: Are was as concerned with making our inner sanctuary a place where God would want to dwell as we are in making the exterior something pleasing to look at? Do you spend time preparing your inner sanctuary to be a temple of the Lord?