Building Temples : Who Do You Worship?

Recently in school we were taken on a video trip through some of the ancient ruins of temples that were used to worship Baal, Athena & Apollo. These structures were massive and their construction was extremely labor intensive. I believe the tour guide said that some of the 6 story columns used in Apollo’s temple took 57 years to carve. Although they all were made for different gods and goddesses, they shared one common trait…they were all made from locally quarried stone. I pondered at the irony of that, that the true God our God the Father, actually created the material that these pagans used to worship their false gods.

I thought about what a slap in Gods face that is but then I thought about how we still do this today.

We often take the very things God has given us and turn them around to become a source to worship the worldly gods of greed, lust, pride. God blesses us with a nice home and financial security we use it to pump up our ego far more than the collection plate and begin to think those wicked thoughts about self sufficiency. There is a whole multi-billion dollar industry that exists to pump up the temple of self and coddle our self-esteem. I believe in knowing your true identity, who you are in Christ. The world repeats the original line of Satan in Genesis’ fall… “surely you will be like god yourself”… and many fall for that seduction hook, line and sinker. There is nothing wrong with success or wealth, as long as you remember where you got them from. Otherwise they become the rocks one may use to construct a temple to worship everyone’s favorite “I”dol – self.

Everything you have came from the hand of God. You came into this world naked and helpless, he gave you life and all that you needed to get through it to this very second today. All God. And one day your flesh will return back to the ground from whence you came…you’ll find no ATM in heaven or people to tell you how great you are. It will just be you, standing exposed and your heart laid bare before the one true living God. He will hold you accountable for all of the time he gave you and how you chose to spend it. In his great and Godly presence you will be humbled and feel like a worm. There will be no shaking of your fist in his face as some claim they will do. You will be face to face with such Holiness and power you will not be able to even stand, let alone be rebellious. He is the ultimate power of all the universes, perfection, righteousness…spend your time worshipping that which is worthy.

A Word of Revelation I Had…

In Old Testament Times people would use rocks to construct temples where they would sacrifice too and worship other “gods” – Baal, Moleck etc. The rocks they used where ultimately supplied by THEE GOD. Today we don’t use the rocks God gave us, but we do use everything else he has supplied us with to build temples to worship other “gods” like our egos, our success, our money etc. We often recite the Lord’s commandments #2 “love thy neighbor as yourself”…and forget #1 “Love the Lord thy God”. Remember EVERYTHING you have came from the hand of God, don’t use it to build temples to false gods, including yourself.