One of my favourite passages in the Scripture is about the magnificent temple that Solomon built for God. The temple was so lavish and nothing was spared in making the temple splendid – the amount of cedar, stone, gold, silver, and more, to make sure that the building was fit for the King of Kings.
And Solomon determined to build a house for the name of the Lord, and a house for his kingdom.
And Solomon told out threescore and ten thousand men to bear burdens, and fourscore thousand to hew in the mountain, and three thousand and six hundred to oversee them.
And Solomon sent to Huram the king of Tyre, saying, As thou didst deal with David my father, and didst send him cedars to build him a house to dwell therein, even so deal with me.
Behold, I build a house to the name of the Lord my God, to dedicate it to him, and to burn before him sweet incense, and for the continual shewbread, and for the burnt offerings morning and evening, on the sabbaths, and on the new moons, and on the solemn feasts of the Lord our God. This is an ordinance for ever to Israel.
And the house which I build is great: for great is our God above all gods.
But who is able to build him a house, seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him? Who am I then, that I should build him a house, save only to burn sacrifice before him?
Send me now therefore a man cunning to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in iron, and in purple, and crimson, and blue, and that can skill to grave with the cunning men that are with me in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom David my father did provide.
Send me also cedar trees, fir trees, and algum trees, out of Lebanon: for I know that thy servants can skill to cut timber in Lebanon; and, behold, my servants shall be with thy servants,
Even to prepare me timber in abundance: for the house which I am about to build shall be wonderful great.
And, behold, I will give to thy servants, the hewers that cut timber, twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil.
2 Chronicles 2:1-9
If you think about it, it was a pretty crazy desire that David had to build God a house. He loved God so much and He wanted to be near Him that he asked God to move house, to leave Heaven and make His home one Earth. But God would not let David build Him the house because David had been a man of war. Instead, God had decided that it would be Solomon, David’s son that would build Him the house. Solomon was a picture of Jesus, the real Son of David. God called him a man of peace, because God was talking about Jesus, the man of peace who would come as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world, thus reconciling men with God.
Of the story of the building of the temple, my most favourite part is when he and the people had finished building the temple seven years later, after he was done with the final preparation to dedicate the temple, it is written in the Book of Second Chronicles chapter five, that the moment the priests came out of the holy place, the house was filled with a cloud that the priests could not stand to minister, for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God. Wow!
11 And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place: (for all the priests that were present were sanctified, and did not then wait by course:
12 Also the Levites which were the singers, all of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, being arrayed in white linen, having cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them a hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets:)
13 It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the Lord, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord;
14 So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God.
The Glory
I often hear sermons about this and how we are waiting for the same glory to fill the house of God (the church) again like He did the last time. But the Lord showed me that it is already done: His Holy Spirit (that is, the Spirit of Christ) in us is the glory!
The Old Testament is a shadow of the real thing. David desired to build God a house because he saw into the future and it was so. But David was being prophetic in that sense, he saw the coming Messiah that one day would come and dwell among His people as prophesied by the prophets of the Old Covenant. We saw this fulfilled when Jesus the Son of God was born as a man and walked on the land of Israel two thousand years ago. Yet that was not just it.
After His resurrection, Jesus ascended into Heaven and there He has been seated at the Father’s right hand, waiting for God to make all His enemies His footstool. Yet He is here with us as the Holy Spirit, dwelling within us, in our hearts. Christ in us is the hope of glory! Jesus, the Son of David, built God a house indeed, it is us the church, and God dwells in each of the believers as the Holy Spirit. The wisdom and the glory of God, He thought it all!
But you might say: what about the manifestation? If it is done, and the glory is in us, where is the miracle I have been waiting for?
The Holy Spirit through Paul explained this in the second epistle written to the Corinthians. Paul was wrestling against false teachings and wrong doctrines that were prevalent at that time to try to bring the believers under the law again. Paul called the law the ministry of death, not denying the glory of it but rather he was unveiling that it had passed and has been replaced by the ministry of the Spirit that has much more glory. But unless we see reality according to the truth, it is as if there is a veil that covers our hearts preventing us from seeing the glory.
If we keep seeing things from “not yet”, “don’t have” “trying to be” we are still under the old mindset, believing the old beliefs, which mainly reside in our souls, our minds. But if we with faith behold the truth that we are as what Jesus says like a mirror, we shall be transformed to the same image as that truth by the Spirit of the Lord, from glory to glory, which means, from one revelation to another revelation. The more we see the truth, the more we are being transformed.
7 But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:
8 How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?
9 For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
10 For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.
11 For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.
12 Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:
13 And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
As the priest came out from the holy place
In the story of the temple dedication above we read that as soon as the priests came out from the holy place, the cloud, which was the glory of God filled the whole temple.
The holy place speaks about our soul. It is not a coincidence that the tabernacle of Moses and the temple consists of three parts: the outer court, the holy place, and the holy of holy. As a man, we have a spirit (the holy of holy, where our spirit that is one with Christ’s spirit resides), a soul (the holy place), and we live in a body that is interchangeably called the flesh (the outer court).
The problem for most believers is that even though they are saved and born again, they do not renew their mind, being in the Spirit but walking after the flesh: following after what they feel, what they see, all based on their senses in the natural and their old beliefs, even though their old man is dead (Romans 6). So even though they are saved, they do not experience the truth, the salvation.
If you relate to this, then beloved, come out from the holy place, and leave living from the soul realm that is mostly carnal. Instead, live from the Holy of Holy, your spirit where you will hear the Holy Spirit guiding you with all truths, according to what’s written in the Holy Scripture based on the finished work of Christ.
16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.
17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.
18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.
19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.
25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
Galatians 5:25
Crowned with glory
In Hebrews, the word glory is atar which means to surround, to encircle, to crown. So it does not refer to just the small crown you would put on your head, but a circle of goodness God put all around you.
My prayer is that you will mirror yourself with the truth of God that is in His Holy Scripture. Go with what the Lord says about you, He will not say it unless it is truth. Your carnal reality is not the truth, it may be the fact, but it is not the truth. Truth is what God sees.
As you behold the truth, you will be filled with His glory, the power of the Holy Spirit in you that will bear witness to God’s word about your health, your family, your future, your finances, and all areas of your life. Because God the Father indeed has crowned us with glory, that is His goodness, on all our sides, the moment we are in Christ, forgiven from all our sins. in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
