There are many holy places across the world. All faiths have them. Sometimes they are buildings, shrines, altars, sometimes patches of ground, rocks, trees, caves, grottos, lakes, waterfalls, stars and planets, statues, and sometimes even animals. Sometimes these places or things are listed as most holy, second holiest, third holiest - leave it to religious mankind to measure holiness on a sliding scale! But holiness is an absolute, and there is only one measure of it, which is the holiness that is the person of God.
People make pilgrimages to these holy places and things by the thousands. Often men fight over them, even being willing to go to war over them. Terrorists seek to destroy them. Evil men are drawn to defile them, or claim them for their own. The Antichrist, the son of perdition (Gr.- "apoleia": destruction, death, damnation, eternal misery in hell) will enter the yet-to-be-built Third Temple written of by the prophets, in order to declare himself to be God. Even the Devil covets the holy mountain of God:
How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High." Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit." Isa. 14:12-15
Lately, violence and terrorism have been aimed at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This site is an eternal point of contention, and prophetically significant in these Last Days. The Jews built two temples on the site, which was Mount Moriah, where Abraham had offered his son, Isaac. That temple was so holy to the Jews, that they would swear upon it when they took an oath (Mt. 23:16). The Muslims built a mosque there later in history. During the Crusades, the Christian armies captured it, and turned the mosque on the site at the time into a church, and then it later became a mosque again.
This morning, I was praying and thinking of this holy site, and the other places of the world that men have called "holy". Suddenly, I was brought to a halt, I was brought to silence and tears. I became touched that God's greatest temple, containing His most wonderful, holy, awesome presence, His glory, is now a different kind of temple. While men struggle, fight, kill, and persecute over holy sites, buildings, and things, God has done "something completely different", as Monty Python would say, something almost completely overlooked. He made me His temple. He made you His temple. He made us the holiest place on earth.
As Jesus met a Samaritan woman at a well, in His conversation with her, He revealed truths that must have seemed revolutionary to her. Jesus told her things that would never have been considered acceptable to either the Jews, nor to the Samaritans of the time. The Jews and Samaritans had been divided for generations over the issue of which mountain they must go to in order to worship and sacrifice. The Jews held one mountain in Jerusalem to be the only acceptable place, while the Samaritans held another mountain holy that was within their country. In fact, as Jesus spoke to the woman, He was sitting on that very mountain in Samaria. Both the Samaritan woman and Jesus referred to the place where they were speaking as "this mountain" (Jn. 4:20). One would think that Jesus, born a Jew, would contend with the woman that naturally, Jerusalem is the only acceptable place of worship and sacrifice. However, He said this instead:
"Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
John 4:21-24
Paul taught this same revelation as he wrote, "Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?...the temple of God is holy, which temple you are." 1 Cor. 3:16, 6:19-20
"...for you are the temple of the living God. As God has said, "I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people." Therefore, "Come out from among them and be separate says the LORD. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you, I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty." 2 Cor. 6:16-18 (Ezek. 37:26-27)
"For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God, and not of us." 2 Cor. 4:6-7
As sacred as man has held various buildings, grounds, and other natural or man-made elements in order to make the holiness of God "visible", God has placed the greatest temple of all inside of me. His Holy Spirit in me, and in you, has made these earthen vessels into vessels that contains the light, the knowledge of glory, the face of Jesus Christ, the wonder of God.
As important as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is, and will be, in prophetic fulfillment, and as important as the other holy places and things on the earth may be to many, nothing compares to the miraculous work of salvation that God, through His Son, Jesus, has created in my life, and in your life. There are no places on earth that are holier than the living temples that He has planned and desired to build in each one of us. How much more does this temple surpass any building of stone that man can build, regardless of how magnificent! How great God is! How can He want to create this miraculous temple in small, unworthy men? That is Who He is, and I am overwhelmed by Him. I want to do those things, and be that, which honors what He has done in me.
Our Father has made us living temples, and dwells among us.
"Instrument of Peace"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBc4uxiXsfc
"Take Me In"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb1k3DxnpVQ
"Bow Down"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ii6a5PW04w
