Restore Your Temple
You’ve been saved, now it’s time to rebuild you.
The body that God gave you to use while on this earth, is a temple. Your body should be treated as a temple and maintained as a temple. In order to hear and be led by the Holy Spirit and receive blessings, the temple of the Holy Spirit, your body, must be clean and free of sin and not in ruin or destroyed.
1 Corinthians 3:17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
After receiving salvation (Grace) given to us by God, we must make the decision and take action to restore our temple which lies in ruin from sin and living according to the flesh and world system (lust, anger, greed, hate, unforgiveness, bitterness, envy, malice, jealousy, strife, contentiousness, scornfulness, sexual immorality, etc.) have destroyed our temple.
We must lay a new foundation
The Apostle Paul said In 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Our salvation and belief in Jesus Christ form the foundation of our temple, everything else we learn and do according to God’s word is building on top of that foundation. You must have a solid foundation to start with. You must be careful what you build on top of that foundation so that it doesn’t fall apart and you must rebuild/restore it again. If you continue walking in the ways of the world and sin after salvation you are building a structure that can easily fall. We must repent of all our sins, and fill our temple with the word of God, good works, and prayer in order to build a solid structure on top of the solid foundation of Jesus Christ.
You cannot live a life of sin, physically or mentally, if you hope to hear the Holy Spirit, be blessed, and grow in Christ Jesus. You must choose Jesus and a life of righteousness. You cannot have both, for Jesus said in Mark 3:25, “And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand”. Therefore, if you try to live a life of righteousness, but continue to hold onto sins from your past, your temple will eventually fall. You must deny yourself, everything that was not of God, that you treasured before you were born again must go. Then rebuild your temple on a new foundation of Christ Jesus so that it may glorify God.
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
Paul said later in 1 Corinthians 6:13 …The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, and in 1 Corinthians 6:17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Finally, Paul sums it up in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 …do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought for a price. So glorify God in your body.
So our temple must be restored in order to have a relationship with God. How can good have anything to do with evil? Will God bless you for choosing to allow evil into your temple and desecrate it?
Repent, repent, repent. Every day repent and turn away from sin and replace that evil with good, read the bible, meditate on the word that you’ve read, pray, and ask for guidance in understanding the word and the Holy Spirit will guide you. The Lord will also give you the strength to turn away from sin. Soon you will be displaying the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control; Galatians 5:22) in your life because of your obedience. And when your temple is restored and clean, blessings will come.
If we are temples for the Lord, Holy Spirit, and God, we must be clean to be blessed. From now on you must say and believe, “I am the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in me.”
Someone planted a seed in you that caused you to believe. Others, preachers, Sunday school teachers, reading the word, etc. watered you, but only God gives you growth. The planters and waterers are fellow workers or servants of God, but we are God’s field, God’s building. 1 Corinthians 3:5-9, and remember 1 Corinthians 6:20 …we were bought for a price.
We are Temples for God, but always remember God owns that Temple, and as you too are a fellow worker/servant for God, you must maintain it. God cannot be glorified and take pleasure in a temple that is in ruin.
Now we can go back to the time of the prophet Haggai.
In the book of Haggai, God spoke to the remnant of the people of Judah through the prophet Haggai.
What about?
About rebuilding His Temple.
In Haggai 1:4-6 the Lord said His house (the temple) lies in ruins. “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies in ruins? Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.
God withheld blessings and cursed the work of their hands because the people chose not to restore the temple but only remain in and restore the homes they had that could never glorify God.
God considered them defiled and unclean, and withheld their blessings,
…until, they chose to be obedient and came to work on the house of the Lord on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month.
In Haggai 1:14-15, we read, And they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts, their God, on the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month,…
In the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, God told them, in Haggai 2:4-9 …Be strong, all you people of the land declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts, according to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts.
On the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, God said in Haggai 2:15-19 Now then, consider from this day onward. Before stone was placed upon stone in the temple of the Lord, how did you fare? When one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were but twenty. I struck you and all the products of your toil with blight and with mildew and with hail, yet you did not turn to me, declares the Lord. Consider from this day onward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Since the day that the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid, consider: Is the seed yet in the barn? Indeed, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have yielded nothing. But from this day on I will bless you.
In summary, before God’s people (this includes you and me), worked on restoring the temple of God, but allowed it to lay in ruin, while they went about their lives doing only for themselves, God made their labors, and the work of their hands fruitless. In other words, they struggled, lived paycheck to paycheck, and worked hard but had nothing to show for it, their money was spent before they even received it. Why? Because they put themselves first before God. You must put God first in your life. Luke 9:23-24, says, …“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it”. We don’t just read the word of God and pray, we must be changed, obedient, and set apart, and we must do the will of God. Always put God first, restore your temple, so that the Lord may take pleasure in it and be glorified Haggai 1:8.
After God’s people began working on the temple they were blessed, as we see in Haggai 2:18-19, Since the day that the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid,… …from this day on I will bless you.
Just as the people in Haggai’s day restored the temple of God, so must we restore our temple. Restore your temple, Jesus set you free from sin, don’t put the shackles back on. Don’t continue cluttering up, neglecting, and destroying the temple of God. Restore it and He will Bless you.
If you’re reading this article, God has led you here and is speaking to you just as He spoke to the people in Haggai’s day. If you’re a believer and have received Jesus Christ as your savior, and you are still choosing sin over God you will struggle just as they did. However, if you restore your temple, just as the people of Jerusalem were obedient and restored the temple of God, just like them you to will be blessed.
If you haven’t been saved, read the NewLight ministry’s salvation page. We look forward to you becoming saved and a member of the family of God.
Suggested reading:
The Book of Haggai
1 Corinthians 3
1 Corinthians 6
According to Romans 8:5 …those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. Our bodies are temples for the Holy Spirit to dwell in and God will find pleasure in you and be glorified by your faithfulness and obedience.