Wed.’s Devo - Cleansing Our Temple

Read: 2 Chronicles 29:1-36; Romans 14:1-23; Psalm 24:1-10; Proverbs 20:12
Hezekiah became king and undid the evil his father Ahaz had done. Hezekiah ruled like David did. On the first day of the year which was Roshashana, he opened the doors of the temple and repaired them. He had the priests and the temple consecrated and got rid of all the evil and defilement that his father had brought into God’s house. They took it and threw it in the Kidron Valley. They worked on cleansing the temple from the first to the sixteenth day of the first month. The fifteenth was the Feast of Tabernacles which represents the fact that God wants to tabernacle or live with his people. Hezekiah was making a place for the Lord to live once more.
When it was all cleansed, Hezekiah had a huge celebration of sacrificing and worshipping the Lord. The priests were stationed in their places with instruments of worship and praise. They led the people in singing. The service of the temple had been reestablished and the people were glad.
In Romans, Paul deals with our habits and self-laws. Everyone knows their own weaknesses and they have to guard themselves to stay clean. What may be a stronghold to one person may not be to another. For example, I have never had an issue with alcohol so passing by a liquor store has no effect on me, but if I had had an addiction at one time then passing by a liquor store might bring forth memories and be an enticement or a temptation to me. If someone is with me who has had an addiction, I need to be sensitive to their temptations and not put them in a situation where they might fall.
It is a waste of time to argue our different freedoms when it is someone else’s struggle. Everyone must answer to their own life, it is not our responsibility to judge them by our own lives. That is like saying we are God. So Paul sums it up by saying that we are to make every effort to do what leads to unity and building up of one another. Even if it means that we modify our own lives to help someone else’s faith.
Lord, help us to be sensitive to other’s needs over our own. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit so help us to keep our temple cleansed.