Feb 9
Lest we even
think that the discussion of the house of God is of some secondary importance, an irrelevant issue...if you think "let's not get all wrapped up in this", keep in mind a couple of things. David, for example (as in King David, OT) loved God with all his heart. I mean who would compare themselves with David in terms of love for God? But what was on David's heart?
What did he want to do before he died more than anything else and couldn't? BUILD THE HOUSE OF GOD. In Psalm 84 what does he talk about?..."the house, Your house oh Lord, the house";
"How beautiful is your DWELLING PLACE, oh Lord of hosts! Blessed are those who dwell in your HOUSE, ever singing your praise! For a day in your HOUSE is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the HOUSE of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness." Now, at the same time, David loved God with every fiber of his being, read the Psalms. And yet THE VERY OBVIOUS
OVERFLOW OF A MAN THAT LOVED GOD WAS TOWARDS...HIS HOUSE! He said he'd rather be a door-keeper in God's house than anywhere else in the universe. There's a fascination, something so compelling about the HOUSE for everybody that loves God. Why? It's His dwelling place, "
In Him you also are being BUILT together into a DWELLING PLACE (a house, a habitation) of God by the Spirit".
Folks will say "but I love GOD, you can worry about the church or focus on it if you want to but I am seeking to worship, to know God". I could say to that person that you may not know how to love God, or ever get to know Him fully, if like David (a man after God's own heart), you don't see the
provision for all of that in God's house; if you do, you will just
automatically love His house. The absence of regard for His dwelling place can't be a true love of God...how can you say you love a God you've not seen if you can't love His house; that is, His body, an expression (though flawed) of His Person that you CAN see?
How can you say you love the Head who you've NOT seen if you can't love His body which you HAVE seen?
If we say we love God we can't underplay the relevance of loving His house, the house of
GOD; loving the work of God's hands, loving the extension of God's heart,
loving the visible of the invisible God as Colossians says. It is imperative that we see the connection between the
essential two; Christ and His body and don't pompously think you love God but His church is secondary, an addendum. Love for His church is the natural overflow as it was for Jesus ("
zeal for My Father's house consumes me) and as it was for David. Here are two men who obviously loved God with their lives, more than can be imagined, and yet for both,
God's HOUSE was a passion beyond words as the overflow of their love for God.
If we really love God there is no way we can draw some invisible line between loving Him and expressing that love for His house. Folks will say, "it's not always easy to love a God you can't touch or see...so how can we love Him?" Love His body, His church, His house...which you CAN see. Here are some Scriptures from Ephesians 5 describing Christ's relationship to His church, "Christ is the Head of the church, His body, and is Himself its Savior. Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of His body. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and His church". To be captured by this vision of the church is not to be a replacement for loving God, but an over flow of loving God. The two are virtually inseparable.
