We've finally made it to the moment everything has been leading toward. David gathered the stones and prepared the people. Solomon sought God, received the blueprint his father left behind, surrounded himself with people who could help him build, and now the temple is finally finished.
The Ark is brought into the temple, the priests take their places, and the musicians and singers begin worshipping together. Scripture says they were as one as they praised God, declaring, He is good; His mercy endures forever.
And then the glory of God fills the temple.
His presence is so overwhelming that the priests can't even continue ministering.
After all the planning, preparation, building, organizing, practicing, and work that went into this moment, when God filled the room, they stopped.
Nobody's assignment was more important than His presence. Nobody's plan was more important than what God was doing in that moment.
But then Solomon says something in chapter 6 that I think is incredibly important for us today. Standing in this magnificent temple that has literally just been filled with the glory of God, Solomon acknowledges that even the highest heavens cannot contain Him, so certainly this temple Solomon built cannot contain Him either. Solomon understood the difference between the place where they met with God and God Himself. And I think sometimes we forget the difference.
We can become so attached to the places where God has met us. Maybe it's a church, a ministry, a denomination, a pastor, a certain style of worship, a tradition, or even a particular season when we experienced God in a powerful way. Those things can be beautiful. They can be sacred parts of our stories. We should be grateful for them. But they are not God.
The temple mattered. Solomon didn't spend all those years building something meaningless. God Himself had instructed its construction, and His glory filled it.But even then Solomon knew that the building could not contain Him.
And knowing what happens later in Israel's story makes this even more important.
Because eventually, people would become comfortable having the temple while their hearts wandered away from the God of the temple. They would continue with religious activity while tolerating things God had repeatedly warned them about.
They had the place. They had the history. They had the traditions. But none of those things could substitute for actually walking with God. We can go to church every Sunday, know the songs, know when to stand, know when to raise our hands, know all the church language, and become so familiar with doing church that we forget why we're there. And I say that as someone who loves the Church and has spent much of my life serving in it.
Church matters. Gathering matters. Community matters.
But the Church was never supposed to become a substitute for knowing Jesus. The building isn't Him. The pastor isn't Him. The worship team isn't Him. The ministry isn't Him.
And the way we've always done something isn't Him. They can all point us toward Him, but they can never replace Him. So we have to ask ourselves have we left enough room for God to interrupt us anymore. Not only in our churches, but in our everyday lives.
We can plan. We can organize. We can prepare. We can have picture of exactly how we think something should look. And become so focused on asking God to bless what we've planned that we forget to ask whether He wants to change the plan altogether.
I don't want to become so attached to where God met me yesterday that I refuse to follow where He's leading me today. And I definitely don't want to become more protective of my traditions, preferences, ministry, or plans than I am hungry for His presence.
And after all these days of talking about gathering stones and building the temple what we needed to remember most is that the temple was never the point. God was. We weren't gathering stones just to have something beautiful to show everyone. We weren't preparing people so we could build an impressive organization. We weren't guarding the doors just to preserve a tradition. Everything was supposed to lead people back to Him. And it still should.
I'm thankful for every place where I've encountered God. I'm thankful for every church, pastor, mentor, ministry, worship service, altar, and season He has used in my life. But I don't want to spend my life trying to get back to a place where God was.I want to follow where He is leading me now.
Love Pastor Mandy
MandiesDandies / Ark of Hope
Daily reading 2 Chronicles 5-6
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