October 22, 2006

• I have to tell you that this morning God showed me something so wonderful in my morning Bible Study. Right now I am doing the Beth Moore study called Living Beyond Yourself which has to do with the fruit of the Spirit. This week we are studying about God’s Peace.

  We had to read Ephesians 2:14-22 For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity , that is, the law of commandments, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. Now therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

  I then got to thinking about the Temple in Jerusalem

  Psalm 118:22 The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone. This was the LORD’s doing ; It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day the LORD has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

  Acts 4: 8-12 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders of Israel; If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

  I started thinking about how, before we are saved, it is sometimes described that we have a “God-sized hole” in our spirits. That we are seeking frantically for something that can only be filled with Jesus. When the Temple was built, a stone was rejected, cast down a hill. In 1 Kings 6:6 And the temple, when it was being built, was built with stone finished at the quarry, so that no hammer or chisel or any iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built.

  The stones were precisely cut and finished away from the temple site, then brought to the temple. The stones fit together, but there was one odd-shaped hole in the temple – that was the spot where the cornerstone was fitted – they searched for the stone and found it cast aside as a “mistake.” When it was found the whole temple was built. We do that with Jesus in our lives – cast Him aside for various reasons. Then we live our frantic lives trying, in our own power, to find joy and happiness and peace. When all else fails, when we come to the end of ourselves, then we seek out Jesus. And surprise of all surprises, He is EXACTLY what we needed to complete our temples (our bodies are a Temple to God), and it is only through Jesus that we will find that peace and joy and happiness.

  Thank God we have a savior who can fill that God-sized hole in our hearts!

  Have a blessed Sunday.

  Heather

  • 7:56 am
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