Why worship God in temples made by human hands?
As I have gotten older, and hopefully wiser, I have come to understand that the scriptures in the Bible point to the human body as the true temple of our Heavenly Father, not the church building or any other building. We are instructed to care for his temple, our body, and care for others because they are also his temple.
“God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
That they (men of all nations in the earth) should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.” Acts 17: 24 – 25; 28-29
“Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
But he spake of the temple of his body.” John 2:19-21
Buildings made by human hands might impress people, but they don’t impress God our Creator, our Heavenly Father. Money donated (or taxed) to build buildings (or anything else) doesn’t impress him either. He said a poor widow’s penny offered is more impressive than a rich man’s offering. He also said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
From the scriptures we can clearly see that HE wants an intimate daily walk with us and for us to recognize a special day each week that we acknowledge him, and do good to others in his name, that special day he calls the Sabbath. The Sabbath means the 7th day when God our Creator rested from his work. He has asked us to do the same and keep it special for him.
The day of the week the Sabbath is on changes each year and sometimes even during a certain month of the year. How you find the day is to learn when the barley is ready for harvest in the spring and the correlation with the first sighting of the moon during that season. This then begins the year, and the Sabbaths of that year are on the seventh day and every seventh day there after. This pattern of seven days should follow a 28 day rotation, with the full moon falling on the second Sabbath of the month. Every once in a while it will be on a 29 day rotation with an extra day added at the end if the next sliver of the moon wasn’t seen until the following night. If the month had 29 days, then the next pattern of “first day” and “seventh day” will shift forward by one day and then continue forward on 28 days again with each month having 4 Sabbaths and then repeating. Today in our modern society, few people keep the true Sabbath of Father God, but instead they set a certain day such as Sunday or Saturday or Friday as their day of worship when they go to temples made with human hands.
What blesses Father God is pure worship and love for him from our heart and caring for the needs of our fellow humans.
Check out these verses from Isaiah 58 about what pleases God the Father:
“Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.
Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.
Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.
Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?
Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?
Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward.
Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;
And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day:
And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:
Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Isaiah 58
May we have the desire to draw near to HIM, our Heavenly Father, through faith and forgiveness found in his only begotten son Jesus who has shown us the truth and the way, and seek his face and learn his ways, and obey and be found faithful.
Be blessed!
