GIG You Are the Temple

Growing In God Podcast

Program Number: GIG #283

Title: You Are the Temple

 

Web Description: Hanukkah celebrates the reality that we are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in us. We take this time to dedicate ourselves on a deeper level to be those in whom God is living and moving. Therefore, as those who are His dwelling place, we wash away any unbelief and separate ourselves from the pollution of this world.

 

Show Notes: Hanukkah celebrates a time of miracles when the people of Israel defeated the powerful kingdom that was oppressing them and took back the Temple in Jerusalem. But after these miracles, the Temple had to be cleansed and rededicated. Likewise, the miracles in our lives are because of the miracle Christ accomplished on the cross, which happened for our cleansing and dedication to be His temple, the holy dwelling place of God in the earth.

 

When Yeshua (Jesus) walked in the Temple during Hanukkah, He did so as the One who would cleanse the Temple, the One sent by the Father to be His true temple, and the One who has sent us with the same purpose of being the temple that God will indwell. By the miracle of His cross, Christ took us out of the hands of satan and cleansed us from sin. And when we receive Him, He gives us the power to dedicate ourselves to Him as the physical bodies in which He dwells.

 

Therefore, we cannot minimize this aspect of our Christian life. We must apply the true cleansing of our hearts and minds that Christ has provided. We must walk in the power that we have received from Him to separate ourselves from the world and to not be touched by any of its corruption. It is time to cleanse ourselves from any unbelief about what God has called us to be as His people. We give ourselves to His working in us to build us together into the temple that He will live in on this earth.

 

Key Verses:

 

•       John 17:21–23. “The world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”

•       John 10:22–25. “The Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem … and Jesus was walking in the temple.”

•       1 Corinthians 3:16–17. “You are a temple of God.”

•       1 Corinthians 6:19–20. “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.”

•       2 Corinthians 6:16–17. “We are the temple of the living God.”

•       Ephesians 2:18–22. “You also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”

•       Philippians 2:12. “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”

•       2 Corinthians 13:5. “Jesus Christ is in you.”

•       Ephesians 3:16–19. “Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”

 

Quotes:

 

•       “We should have a very aggressive attitude during this time of Hanukkah as we look at the things in the world that need to conform to what God has already said, what He's already spoken, what He’s already prophesied. And we just stand up and say, ‘It is finished. It is already done. And enough is enough!’”

•       “Christ comes and reconciles us to the Father as the temple of worship. But then we become those who dedicate ourselves and make sure there's the cleansing, the reviving of the temple to a state of purity through which the worship can come.”

•       “They had to go cleanse everything in the Temple during Hanukkah that had been polluted by the world. And there's a pollution in us that blinds our hearts and minds from really accepting and seeing and believing and understanding that God is in us.”

 

Takeaways:

 

1.    Hanukkah means standing firm in the miracle of Christ’s victory that establishes His Kingdom in the earth and delivers us from the wickedness, sin, and corruption of this world.

2.    Just as the Temple was taken from the evil ruler, cleansed, and dedicated back to the Lord, so Christ delivers us from satan, cleanses us from sin, and makes us the temple of God, His dwelling place.

3.    We must not diminish the indwelling of God within us; rather, we apply the power that Christ gives us to dedicate ourselves to be wholly His temple.