My husband and I have been blessed to own a ranch.  It’s not one with cows and horses.  It has deer, antelope, turkey and fish. (You will recognize it….”where the deer and the antelope play….”)  In an effort to make it a place where we can spend time with family and friends, we have had to figure out housing for our guests. The picture on the left is of the original house.  This property was owned by a family friend and was sold to us in January 2011.  In fact, this picture of the turkey fighting was taken at Thanksgiving the year we purchased it. (As awesome as the turkey are, take a look at the picture of the house and barn.)

We first started looking at this two-bedroom house to see if it could be remodeled to hold our guests. It was built in 1940’s. In today’s modern world, this house was far from modern.  Once the contractor took a look at it, it was determined that it needed new wiring, new plumbing, and new subfloors. There was very little insulation. Windows were broken. The front door was hanging by one hinge. The front porch was slanting funny and the 2×4 that was holding it up was crooked. The cost to make this house livable was HUGE.  We were told it would be cheaper to tear this one down and start over. That was hard to do because, my husband knew the man, Mr. Terry, that had lived there. My husband went to church with him as a child. We had visited him together, when he was 100 years old. The house had value in my husband’s eyes.

I have recently done a study on two books of the Bible, Ezra and Nehemiah.  There is so much I want to say about these books that I will break them down into a few blogs. These books tell how God used Ezra to rebuild His temple, and Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. I’m confessing to you, that I have never spent much time in these books. I never really saw how the information in these books could help me today. Thankfully I was wrong.  There is an application for today.  I need to get into THE CONSTRUCTION ZONE. Just like the old house, my spiritual temple is damaged. I live in a broken world. Routine maintenance must be kept up on my temple. And just like the old house, I have not continued “updates”. Spiritual satisfaction has led to spiritual stagnation and not a deeper relationship with God. I need repairs made on my heart. I can’t be satisfied with status quo or I will end up collecting dust and falling apart. Can you relate? It’s time for me to get to work on building my temple. After all, I am the Temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). Just like the temple had been torn down and needed to be rebuilt, I need to go through my life and tear down things that don’t honor God and rebuild my life in a way to honor Him.

So how do we know it is time to work on our temple? I believe it is very much like it was during the time of Ezra.  Ezra 1:5 says that those whose heart God moved went up to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem.  There are new testament examples of God moving people to do specific tasks too.  Acts 8:26-40 is the story of Phillip being told to go and meet the Ethiopian and tell him of Jesus. Acts 9 tells the story of Saul’s (the Apostle Paul) conversion. Ananias is told specifically to go and teach Saul because he is God’s chosen instrument. If God moved hearts, then, why wouldn’t He move them now. I need to stop and listen to what God is telling me and obey Him.

Let’s return to the book of Ezra. The first two chapters give a background of why the temple was going to be rebuilt. Ezra was a priest. King Cyrus of Persia was moved by God to have God’s people return to their home and rebuild the temple of the LORD, THE GOD OF ISRAEL. He didn’t have a faith in God but wanted “their” God to be with them. God uses those that believe in Him as well as those that do not believe to fulfill His purpose. God wanted a relationship with His people. He used an ungodly king to do His will. Not only did King Cyrus send the people of Israel back to their homes to build this temple, he made sure that they had all the supplies that they needed.  King Cyrus gave LOTS of gold, silver and priestly garments to the Israelites. Scripture says that “All their neighbors assisted them with articles of silver, gold, good, livestock and valuable gifts”, Ezra 1:6. Only the one true God could do that!

There is a shift in the story in Ezra 3. Before the temple building begins, Ezra gathers the people of Israel together to worship God. An altar is built, and sacrifices are made. Skip down to 2:10 When the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with cymbals, took their places to praise the Lord, as prescribed by David king of Israel. With praise and thanksgiving, they sang to the Lord: “He is good;his love toward Israel endures forever.” And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid”(Emphasis mine). This is not something to take lightly.  Worship is a time that we become closer to God. It is relationship building time with our creator….that’s what He wants. That’s why the rebuilding of the temple was so important in the first place. Worship is a time that we gain our strength. It is a time that we admit that we are nothing without Him. Ezra made sure that the priorities of the Israelites were in order, and they had spiritual strength for what was ahead. A simple formula for us today is WORSHIP THEN BUILD. This is the very foundation of the temple that is being built.

When you build a structure, the foundation is critical. Our spiritual temple must have a sturdy foundation too. When you look up cornerstone in the dictionary, one of the definitions is foundation. Peter calls Jesus our cornerstone in Acts 4:11. But I love how Paul writes about our foundation being Christ Jesus in Ephesians 2:19-20 (The Message) …. God is building a home. He’s using us all – irrespective of how we got here – in what he is building.  He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone.

Just as Ezra called the Israelites to corporate worship, we to need to participate in corporate worship. I don’t think that is enough though. Building a relationship, a deep relationship takes more than one or two times a week in corporate worship. Our relationship with God is the very foundation of our faith. How can Jesus be our cornerstone if we don’t know Him?  We must spend time with Him. Just as Ezra had the Israelites do, we must confess our sins, we must worship, and celebrate Him in praise. Doing this is like spending time with the master architect of a house and learning what his plans for our new home (our temple) will be.

Be Blessed – Cherie