Minimum Requirement

And this is the basic law of the Temple: absolute holiness! The entire top of the mountain where the Temple is built is holy. Yes, this is the basic law of the Temple.

Ezekiel 43:12 NLT

I love reading the Old Testament. I don't find it to be just a bunch of old stories with strange people and prophets that said and did weird things. It's not just a part of the Bible that shows God's wrath and the New Testament is His grace.

I love to find the application from every book of the major prophets to even the minor ones like Obadiah and Nahum. The passage from above is taken from Ezekiel, a major prophet, who was given many visions of things to come and the one above is a blueprint of the future temple.

When I see the word temple I don't think of the place Jewish people go for worship. I think of Paul telling the Corinithians that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and we are to treat it as such and honor God with how we live.

The Lord was telling Ezekiel that holiness was the minimum requirement to be a part of his temple. From the building itself to the priests who ministered there to the people who came to offer their worship and sacrifices, it was all to be set apart for God.

What about us? Can we strive to make our lives from the words we use to the shows and movies we watch to the food and drink we consume to the way we treat people be done in complete holiness? Can we treat our bodies or the bodies of the people in our sphere of influence as though we were doing it unto the Lord?

I pray that we would all set our sights and our standards at the highest possible level. May we all look to not take the easy road to skate by or do just enough. Instead of using the old slogan, "What Would Jesus Do?" how about asking "Would God Approve or Would He Be Pleased?" This can be applied to our relationships, our conversations, our tv viewing and our internet surfing.

We live in such a secular society that is learning that "Big Brother" is watching now and it comes in the form of cell phone videos and You Tube and it's really coming to bite people in the rear. I see this an opportunity from the Lord for our public life to start to line up with our private life.

May we all welcome the intrusion. Or cause us to look inward to change.