Tues.’s Devo - Preparing for the Temple

Read: 1 Chronicles 22:1-23:32; Romans 3:9-31; Psalm 12:1-8; Proverbs 19:13-14
Yesterday we read that the plague stopped at the threshing floor of Araunah. This was on Mt. Moriah which was also the mountain that Abraham took Isaac to sacrifice him. David saw the destroying angel with his sword ready to strike Jerusalem but stopped right on this spot. David declared that this was the very place he was to build the temple. Araunah offered to give David the land and the animals he would need for sacrifices but David had learned one thing…do it God’s way. The law says that you can’t offer a sacrifice to God that doesn’t cost you something and David repeated this statement. David had had to refer back to the Law many times during his reign because God was not going to honor man’s way.
David assembled all the people they had taken from other lands and made them the workers for the temple. They made the stones and the nails and got everything ready for Solomon when it was time for him to build. David had saved up and donated 100,000 talents of gold which is about 3,750 tons of gold. He also gave a million talents of silver and so much bronze it couldn’t be weighed and wood and stone. Then he told Solomon that he could add to it if he wanted!
David ordered his leaders to help his son in building the temple. He counted the Levites and there were 38,000. Of them, 24,000 were to supervise the work of the temple; 6,000 where to be officials and judges; 4,000 were to be gatekeepers; and 4,000 were to be on the worship team.
The Levites were divided into their three families which would do the same jobs they had done in the tent tabernacle only now, in the temple.
So much work went into preparing a place for God’s presence. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, so I wonder what we should be doing to prepare our hearts to carry the presence of the Lord? We could get rid of things that clog up our thoughts like worry, resentment, frustration, fear, comparison, insecurity, etc. God deserves a peaceful beautiful place to dwell.
In Romans, Paul pointed out that all men are the same in their struggle with sin and their redemption is the same. The purpose of the law was to make man conscious of their sin, but righteousness could not be attained by faith in Christ. Sacrifices covered sin for a year, but the blood of Jesus took sin away eternally.
Lord, thank you for the blessing of living under grace and not the law. Thank you that you are building your temple in our hearts that we might stand to be a light to the nations.