This week’s post is about being the temple of the Lord and manifesting The Glory of The Lord. Once His sweet presence manifests, it’s very easy and enjoyable to spend time in prayer. The more we’re aware of The Glory, the more we’ll sense the filling in the room.
1 Corinthians 6:19 NKJV
…do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you…
I know! The anti-smoking and all-purpose condemnation scripture, but not today! We all know Paul is trying to make the point not to defile the temple but thinking about being the tabernacle/temple in a positive light is nothing short of exciting!
Is the tabernacle in the wilderness the same as the temple in Jerusalem? Technically, yes.
Exodus 25:8-9 NKJV
8And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. 9According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it.
Because the children of Israel were moving around in the dessert, the tabernacle was the mobile version of the temple. Think of it like the food truck version of a restaurant. When you read about the tabernacle in Exodus, this applies to us as well.
1 Kings 8:12-13 NKJV
12Then Solomon spoke: “The Lord said He would dwell in the dark cloud. 13I have surely built You an exalted house, and a place for You to dwell in forever.”
This is the beginning of Solomon’s temple dedication speech. The only difference between the mobile version and the permanent version is that the permanent version was more elaborate, but the instructions and sacrifices were all carried out the same.
We were told twice by Paul, previously in 1 Corinthians 3:16 NKJV,
Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
We are the temple of God. That means, we can look at the things concerning the temple and apply them to our lives. I don’t want to go through too many aspects of the temple for length’s sake. But next time you read about the temple in the Old Testament, ask the Lord to reveal how it applies to your prayer life.
The Glory of the Lord was a common sight for the people of the Old Testament, especially the those that left Egypt. We read several times how the Glory of the Lord appeared in a cloud for the children of Israel to follow in the wilderness by day (Exodus 13:20-22), pillar of fire by night, and how the Glory of the Lord filled the temple.
Exodus 40:35 NKJV
And Moses was not able to enter the tabernacle of meeting, because the cloud rested above it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
Let’s quickly skip over to Revelations 15, and see how the temple will be back, and the glory will be back!
NKJV
5After these things I looked, and behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened.
Some people believe this temple is in Heaven with God. In Greek, this says, “heaven” and generically refers to whatever meaning you’d like to apply, Heaven with the throne or stars in the sky. Let’s check this in the original Hebrew writing, because the Greek is a copy of the Hebrew manuscript anyway.
Hebrew
5And after this I saw that the ark of the covenant was opened in the heavens.
Heavens, this means the scripture is not referring to Heaven where the throne of God resides. Why does this matter? You’ll see shortly! Get ready for your spirit to get excited! Next verse,
Hebrew
8And the house of prayer was filled with smoke, and the glory of YHWH filled the tabernacle, and no one was able to go into it until the seven plagues of the seven messengers were finished.
In the Greek naso is used for temple instead of “House of Prayer.” Naso is also used to describe pagan temples and shrines, such as Diana’s temple. Back to the original Hebrew, there is no “House of Prayer” in Heaven. “House of Prayer” is referring to the Temple of the Lord. After Jesus turned over the tables, He quoted scripture from Isaiah 56:7, and called the temple the “House of Prayer.” This means the glory of God is still here and available for you in your praise life today, right now! Yes, really! Still don’t believe me? Check this out!
Psalm 22:3 KJV
But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
I’m using King James here, because New King James didn’t translate inhabit well. The word inhabit in Hebrew means, to sit (as in set in), remain, dwell (as inhabit). How does the Lord hang out (my modern translation) in your praise? The Glory cloud!! Woohoo! What an exciting thought to know your praise can actually initiate God changing the spiritual atmosphere around you. Then the next BIG question is, how do we get The Glory to manifest around us in our prayer life? I’m going to go over three basics things.
1. Clean Temple
Make sure your life is right with the Lord. The temple was a place to receive forgiveness of sins, Exodus 29. Jesus taught, in Matthew 5:24, to make things right with your brother before you bring your gift to the temple. This tells us, that if we want The Glory to manifest, we should make sure we’re forgiven, and we have no issues with a brother or sister. I think most of us know if our temple is clean or not, except when it comes to forgiving yourself. Make sure you forgive yourself as well and understand you’re right with God. If you don’t see yourself as righteous, then you won’t feel worth to receive from the Lord. John 3:16, we all know and love that scripture, but it’s equally as important for Christians to memorize the next two verses. They’re for us to remember moving forward as Christians.
John 3:17-18 NKJV
17For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 18“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
In other words, Jesus wasn’t sent to call you guilty, because that’s what condemned means, but He was sent to save you. Next verse, do you believe in Jesus’ name? Then you’re not guilty, condemned. I know. It’s a new thought to take this scripture as truth, because the enemy spends so much time making us feel wrong and guilty for our past. That’s not how the Lord wants us to feel moving forward. It’s NOT Bible humility to say, “I’m an old sinner saved by grace.” No, you’re the righteous washed in the blood.
2. Reverence
In recent years, we’ve had a huge shift in reverence in approaching God. Culturally speaking, we’ve had a shift in basic respect for one another. People used to use titles, mister, misses, and miss. Not only that they would greet each other with good day, best wishes, and other pleasantries. Now the cultural attitude is gimmie, tell me, and get out my way. To make these matters worse, there is a teaching that has kicked the door open wide to bring some of that attitude into the church, “Talk to God like He’s your best friend. You can tell him anything!” I’m going to throw you a huge Uh…Oh. A few years back when I moved, I was looking for a church. I found a small church, an odd bunch of people, that loved meeting for corporate prayer. One thing they liked to do was pray out loud, as in loudly, but I tuned them out. My mother visited one day, and she, being distracted by the noise, heard what they were saying. She said a young woman sat down next to her and proceeded to speak aloud to the God of Heaven like her gossip girlfriend. My mother was horrified hearing her prayers and the prayers of others. As soon as we returned to my house, she promptly found another church to visit. Since that incident, I’ve been paying closer attention when people share how they pray. Sometimes you can hear a lack of reverence being used. They don’t realize the Great God Jehovah, Who sits on the throne, is NOT a gossip girlfriend, someone to unload on, or a best buddy to list off “datable girls.” Let’s look at a few scriptures in the New King James:
Exodus 3:5 – The Lord told Moses to remove his sandals because he was standing on Holy ground, also an ancient act of submission.
Leviticus 10 – The sons of Aaron offered “strange fire,” better understood as unauthorized fire, before the Lord in the sanctuary. The Lord sent fire and killed them both.
2 Samuel 6:2 – David put the ark on a cart instead of following the Lord’s instructions to have men carry it by the designated side poles. Uzzah touched the ark when the oxen stumbled and he died there by the ark.
Proverbs 9:10 – We’re told to fear the Lord, because it’s the beginning of wisdom.
Acts 5:4,10 – Ananias and his wife Sapphira decided to both lie to the apostles, but they were really lying to “the church,” which Jesus is the head, or “God” in general as the Greek says. Both dropped dead immediately.
I’m not sure where ministers get the idea to teach people it’s ok to have a loose tongue before the Lord. The Bible does say “the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend,” but ministers neglect to point out how respectfully they treated friends and strangers in Bible times. It wasn’t uncommon to bow and to bring a stranger in your home for a meal. The story of Nabal and David in 1 Samuel 25, I think most of us can relate more to Nabal than David when Nabal said in verse 10-11, “Who is David, and who is the son of Jesse? … Shall I then take my bread and my water and my meat that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men when I do not know where they are from?” He has a point, right? Of course we see this story from God’s eye view and know he’s wrong, but most people today would play Nabal.
I’m not suggesting we take off our shoes, and quake in fear before the Lord, but approach Him with the best reverence we know. I think a good depiction is to think back to old black and white shows like Dennis The Menace. They responded to their father with respect, “Yes, sir.” They reverenced their father with the whole “Dad’s home” thing, which is no longer a thing. Can you imagine the older Leave It to Beaver brother doing the “Dad’s home” by talking to him about some bad football bets he made when he drank a little too much, but it wasn’t his fault, then asks his father to help him cover it up? That episode never made it to TV! Could you imagine hearing what God has to hear for 5 mins from some people today? How many Real Housewives of Whatever-town style unloading is He forced to hear constantly? Yikes! No wonder He wants everyone saved, filled, and growing. hehe Bless God with your thoughts and prayers. Let’s look at what the Lord said after He sent fire from the sanctuary that burned up Aaron’s sons,
Leviticus 10:3 NKJV
… ‘By those who come near Me, I must be regarded as holy; and before all the people I must be glorified.’ A believer’s actions are the determining factor as to whether or not The Glory will be manifested. It’s not that God will love you more or less. We talked about this in another post, “Cleaner is closer to the Lord.”
3. Sacrifice
The temple had a lot of animal sacrifices happening. We, thankfully, are only commanded…
Hebrews 13:15-16 – Sacrifice of praise, doing good, and sharing.
Romans 12:1 – Present your body as a living sacrifice.
1 Peter 2:5 – We’re called living stones and priests told to offer spiritual sacrifices.
What are all these scriptures saying? We already understand praise, doing good to others, and presenting ourselves to be in service to the Lord. But what about offering spiritual sacrifices. What are spiritual sacrifices? Basically, it’s your time and/or will offered in sacrifice for spiritual purposes. It would be anything that takes your time and patience that promotes the Kingdom of God. For example, you’d like to chew out the criminal that’s using your mother’s house address to allude the police. But you email them and kindly request they contact the police with their address, in case the Lord would like you to minister to them or purchase them a Bible for their next prison visit. That’s an example of spiritual sacrifice, choosing the love of God over your desired actions.
Getting back to Hebrews 13:15-16NKJV. If your temple is clean, you’re reverent, and you offer a sacrifice in your temple, the Glory of the Lord WILL show up during your praise and worship time. Let’s read that scripture:
15 …let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. 16But do not forget to do good and to share, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.
You might think, wait a min, I never seen anything before. You probably won’t see anything. Jesus told Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” I don’t know of anyone who has seen the Holy Spirit descend on them like a gentle dove, but He still does! So the next time you praise God, expect The Glory to show up. As you keep expecting, pay close attention to the atmosphere as you praise and give thanks to His name, Yahweh or Jehovah. The Glory can feel like peace, joy, calmness, love, relaxation or maybe all of those things. If you have walked into different churches or prayer meetings and one just feels better than the other, that’s The Glory cloud present. If this is all too wild for you, that’s ok! Ask the Lord to show you truth in small doses, because God is faithful to show up no matter what our revelation is.
Now that the atmosphere is fill with the Glory, and you’re in an atmosphere of love and faith you’re ready to pray!
Lord, give everyone reading a deeper revelation and understanding of Your manifested presence in their lives. Show us all how to have a thicker more tangible Glory cloud, like in the days of Moses. Thank you for loving us and allowing us closer into Your presence.
Christi
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