My House His Home

If anyone loves Me, he will keep my word;
and my Father will love him, and We will come to him
and make Our home with him
John 14:23

… do you not know that your body
Is the temple of the Holy Spirit …
1 Corinthians 6:19

When Solomon became king, one of his top priorities was to build a home for God – a glorious temple. Later in the New Testament, Jesus taught of the parable of the two houses – one life built on obedience and the other on self-will. When we combine these two principles, we understand that a person’s life is like a house and that we are God’s temple. In fact Jesus says: Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me (Revelation 3:20). In other words, Jesus wants us to let Him into our life – our house. He wants to chat, rap, hang out with us. He wants to help us renovate, re-decorate, re-build and restore our ‘homes.’

If we are God’s home – a dwelling place for the divine – then we are also really a temple. We are God’s temple. In His eyes, our life was designed to be sacred. This means that touching God means developing a taste for the good things that please Him. It means walking in righteousness, which means taking the right pathways through life. It means becoming upright or allowing God to straighten out the crookedness of our sinful nature. It means studying the architecture of God’s Word or the patterns of His thoughts and building them into our homes. It means building life by making carefully-considered and God-approved choices. This deliberate kind of home construction asks more of us, but it also produces the deepest joy, for it is the house built on the rock – on consistent obedience – that remains standing through the flux of circumstance.

I’ve seen storms and faced flooding, yet every cyclone season proves that my home is perfectly weather-proof and totally time-resistant. I know because I’m still standing on My Rock!