“Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you?” – The Bible, 1 Corinthians 3:16
If God could live anywhere where would it be?
That sounds like a silly question. One of the perks of being God is that he can do whatever he wants. That means he can live anyplace.
But one of the graces of being the God who is love is that he doesn’t force himself where he isn’t wanted. So to ask it another way, where does God most want to be wanted?
In the Garden of Eden, God came to walk with his people in the cool of the evening (Genesis 3:8-9). In the desert of Exodus, God came to accompany his people in their wanderings (Exodus 29:45-46). In the Promised Land, God moved in with his people in glorious fire and smoke (2 Chronicles 7:1). When the people of Israel turned away from God, he pleaded with them to change their ways so he could again live with them (Jeremiah 7:3). In the church age God lives among and within his people (2 Corinthians 6:16). And at the end of the age, God will live with his redeemed and restored people forever (Revelation 21:3). From Genesis to Revelation, from the beginning of creation to the end of time, God’s desire is to live with his people – his family.
As Creator, we know that God is everywhere, all the time. Ephesians 1:23 calls God, “him who fills all in all.” But as Father, God wants to be with his children in a special way.
Sometimes the presence of God is more than a theological concept. Sometimes it’s almost tangible. I bet you’ve said it yourself: “I could feel the touch of God.” Or, “God really visited us today.”
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to settle for just a touch from God, or even a visit. As Tommy Tenney says in The God Chasers, I never want to treat God as some kind of cosmic delivery man who stops by just long enough to leave off some gifts.
Those experiences of God are better than nothing, but for me, when God shows up, I don’t want him to leave. I want him to move in to stay. I want my house, and my church, and my life to be where God decides to come and live.
If that’s what God wants, and that’s what I want, what’s the problem? The problem is I’m not always willing to do what it takes to let it happen.
God could have created us with no choice but to love him, but that wouldn’t be real love. God could force us to act like we love him, but that wouldn’t be real love. Love is only real if it is freely given. God wanted to share real love. So God gave us free will.
Unfortunately, our free will doesn’t just give us the opportunity to freely love God. It gives us the opportunity to cause a lot of trouble as well. We see this in the very first human beings God created.
Adam and Eve shared love with God for a time. Genesis 3 implies that God used to enjoy walking with them in the Garden of Eden. But one day they exercised their free will to disobey God, and that time of innocent family fellowship was broken.
“They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’” (Genesis 3:8-9).
God experienced the heartbreak of a father whose children turn against him and get lost in the world. Adam and Eve’s disobedience broke up God’s family. The whole rest of the Bible records God’s plan throughout history to bring his children back.
For a while God tried to relate to the whole growing human race, but they turned from God and became so wicked that God had to destroy them all in Noah’s flood (Genesis 6-8). He tried again with Noah’s descendants, but instead of trusting God, they built a tower and put their trust in it. They were unified, but not in God. To keep it from happening again, God confused their language, and the human race scattered across the earth (Genesis 11).
So God changed strategies. He decided to relate in a special way to one group of people, who would get to know and love him. Then they could invite the rest of the world into God’s family. God chose the children of Abraham, the nation-family known as the Hebrews, Israel, or the Jews. King Solomon understood. He prayed at the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem, “that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel” (2 Chronicles 6:33).
When Israel wandered in the wilderness, God told Moses, “I want the people of Israel to build me a sacred residence where I can live among them” (Exodus 25:8).
When the Hebrews conquered the Promised Land and started living in houses, God approved David’s plan to build a house where God could live. It was called the Temple, and God filled it with his presence (2 Chronicles 6:1). For the next thousand years, a series of temples in Jerusalem were the focus of God living among his people.
Unfortunately, somewhere between Solomon and Jesus the Hebrews lost their understanding of what it meant to be God’s chosen people. They forgot God chose them as messengers to invite the whole world into his family. Instead, they began to believe God chose them to be the only members of his family. They became so proud of what they saw as their special status that God could no longer bear to live with them.
So God started again, with Jesus. But this time membership in the family wasn’t by genes but by choice. The Bible says, “Children born by natural descent from Abraham are not necessarily God’s children. Instead, children born by the promise are considered Abraham’s descendants” (Romans 9:8). The “children born by the promise” are the church.
The church – all people, of Jewish or non-Jewish descent, who put their faith in Jesus – is now the family of God. And our loving Father has commanded us to bring as many people into the family as will accept the invitation. And when we do, we become the fulfillment of God’s desire to live among his people. “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matthew 18:20).
God so longs to live among his people that when we die, God takes us to live with him until the end of time. And at the end of time, when everything is put the way God wants it, where will God live? With his people. “I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them’” (Revelations 21:3).
God is not looking for a place to live. He has that in heaven. God is longing for a group of people to live with. God’s purpose in creating human beings was that we would be his family. Fulfilling that purpose is what the church is all about.
First, the church exists to create a loving family home where God can be honored and obeyed and rest and be himself. “Now rise up, O Lord God, and go to your resting place” (2 Chronicles 6:41). Creating this atmosphere is worship.
Second, the church exists to raise God’s children to be like their heavenly father. “Be imitators of God, as beloved children” (Ephesians 5:1). This is discipleship.
Third, the church exists to equip God’s children to bring other people into God’s family. “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). This is evangelism.
Everything we do as a local church – in fact, everything we do as Christians – should contribute to fulfilling one or more of these three purposes. How do your church’s programs stack up? Anything that doesn’t advance one of these purposes is an unnecessary drain on the church’s time, energy and resources that can hinder our ability to do things of eternal value.
I’ll be writing more about this in upcoming blogs. In the meantime, please share in the comments: when do you most sense God’s presence? Do you see it as entirely God’s initiative, or is there something you do to invite God or make yourself more receptive?
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