1 CORINTHIANS 6:19-20
Contemporary English Version (CEV)
You surely know that your body is a temple where the Holy Spirit lives. The Spirit is in you and is a gift from God. You are no longer your own. God paid a great price for you. So use your body to honor God.
One day while walking in a beautiful garden, God decided to create a special place for Himself to dwell. Out of the clay and dirt of the earth, He fashioned a building in which to place His most precious possession, His very own Spirit. When the temple was complete, God decided to give the honor of caretaker to His greatest creation, a man. The man was given instructions to take care of the temple. God told him, “My son, be careful to only bring inside the walls of the holy place things which would edify and beautify the walls of this place. In the very heart of the temple is the sanctuary. Never let anything pile up near or around the temple. My Spirit’s Voice would then be drowned out by the clutter and He could not dwell within the walls without being hindered and made silent in the Temple.
“He will only clean in the areas where you allow Him to go.”
Decorate as you please and no room is forbidden for you to dwell. Just remember, guard the doors carefully, my son,” God said. “The enemy would love to come in and destroy the great works of Art which are place throughout the temple. But the gates of hell shall not prevail against this temple IF you resist the devil. If you remember My Words, then you shall have a clean temple. If by accident you bring in dirt or allow other things or people to sully the sanctuary, I have a Master Cleaner who will come at your asking and will clean the temple from attic to basement. He will come everyday if you but ask. Don’t worry; the clean-up service for you is free. The Cleaner bore the costs for you up front. But remember my son; He will only clean in the areas where you allow Him to go.”
So the man took possession of the temple with gladness of heart. Here was a clean, wonderful space for him to live within. He walked about looking at the works of art, which also functioned to help him keep the temple in working order, and marveled. As time went by, the man decided it was time to put some new things inside the temple. As he shopped about, he realized that the works of good, the things which were edifying and beautifully made were also expensive and difficult to move inside the temple. At first, he didn’t give a second thought to the price and the weight of the good things. But as time continued he began to compromise on what he would bring inside. Though he knew what would enhance the temple, he sometimes felt it was too costly and too much weight to carry to buy the best. So he started looking for second hand art: weavings and carvings which were pleasing to his own eyes but wouldn’t necessarily compliment the interior of the Temple. It cost less and was easier to bear. After a while, it didn’t matter to him what he brought in through the doors. He would bring bags and bags of debris and just mound them up in every unused room in the temple. No sacrifices had to be made on his part. The trash cost him nothing.
Before he knew it, the man had an insatiable appetite for bringing things into the Temple to make him feel good. It didn’t matter if it was dirty, sour-smelling or downright ugly. He felt he had to fill the temple up with things and possessions. His obsession was so great that he didn’t even realize the temple had experienced several break ins and there were illegal squatters STILL in rooms of the temple he couldn’t bring himself to look into anymore. The enemy had sent spies and interlopers disguised as salesmen to persuade the man to “buy” their products and he had unwittingly let them pass the doors of the Temple. He didn’t realize he was selling off rooms of the Temple! Now they had legal rights to live there within the walls of the temple just as he did. The temple was crowded with junk from ceiling to floor, yet the man could only see what he believed to be beautiful and NORMAL.
Meanwhile the Spirit, the precious gift which God had placed inside of the holy sanctuary, was almost virtually silenced. The Spirit waited with patience and love but quietly called on the man to call the Master Cleaner to come and clean the Temple from attic to basement. The Spirit knew all which was going on in the Temple, in each and every room. He knew if only the man would call the Cleaner, the Spirit would be able to show the man the greatness of God’s Glory and Art in the temple once again.
One day, when the man wasn’t so consumed with the clutter and hording mentality which had bewitched him, he heard the still small voice of the Spirit calling from the room he had so long ago forgotten. He had clarity enough in that moment to call on the Master Cleaner to come and clean up the temple. However, in that moment of clarity, he also came to himself and realized the amount of clutter which had piled up all around him He became sorely embarrassed. “How can I let the Master Cleaner come in here and see the chaos I have caused in this Temple of God? I know what I will do. While He is on His way, I will try to clean up the rooms myself.” But while trying to straighten up he could only manage to reshuffle the same things to different places. There where only a few rooms left which where semi-presentable. “I know what I will do!” said the man.
The appointed time came for the Master Cleaner to arrive. When the Cleaner rang the doorbell, the man ran excitedly to the door but with some trepidation of just what the Master would think of how did and did not take care of the Temple. The Master is a perfect gentleman so He only passes the threshold of the Temple when He is invited in. The man welcomed the Master inside but had already purposed in his heart which rooms he would avoid. So the man let the Master in the Temple with ulterior motives. He allowed the Master to clean in the basement because he figured most other temples had junky basements so he wouldn’t be any different. He let the Master walk through the hallways and remove the trash which had clogged up the walkways to the sanctuary. The man opened the door to one room in which a few of the squatters and illegal residents had taken possession and with one Word from the Master, they fled, kicking and screaming the whole way. In this way, the man and the Master walked throughout the entire temple. As they would approach a room, the Master would point and say, “Do you want me to make this room whole?” and would patiently await the man’s reply. Only if the man said yes would the Master go in and utterly clean from top to bottom and restore the room to it’s first glory. A lot was accomplished on that day when the Master came in and cleaned several of the rooms of the Temple for the man.
Yet the Master knew the heart of the man. He could see there were obvious places the man did not allow Him to clean. The man avoided his bed chambers. He wouldn’t let the Master into the kitchens. The master wasn’t allowed to see the attic or several of the living rooms and play areas. But the most glaring omission of all was the sanctuary. The man had allowed so much trash in the place of the Spirit that he was too mortified to let the Master into the heart of the Temple. The Master Cleaner asked the man, “Do you want me to do a thorough cleansing of the entire Temple? Remember I have already borne the price of cleaning up your place of dwelling.” The man was tempted but let his embarrassment and false humility say for him, “No Master Cleaner, I think you have done enough. I can handle the rest of this by myself. You don’t have to trouble Yourself any longer with my Temple. What You have done for me is more than sufficient. I appreciate what you have done up to this point.” Already he could feel the burden of the other dirty rooms weighing down his shoulders. But he had already said he was okay. He didn’t want to seem wishy-washy and incapable of handling things on his own.
As the man walked the Master to the door he almost had second thoughts about letting the Master into the places which he had hidden from view. And though the voice of the Spirit was stronger in the Temple, the sounds of unseen squatters, spies and interlopers were also echoing throughout the halls encouraging him to let the Master leave. The Master Cleaner turned to the man once again, searched his eyes and gave him this humble reminder: “My Son, I will only clean in the areas where you allow Me to go. Remember what God told you, this service is free. Whenever you call upon My Name, I will answer you and will set you free from the clutter, this trash you have allowed inside. I will give you the freedom you once had in this great Temple made just for you. Just ask and I will make your Temple whole.” With tears in His eyes the Master Cleaner bid the man adieu…
Healing and deliverance are different. Deliverance is a choice. I can have all the faith in the World! But if you don’t want God to clean up your temple… you have to want it…Let the Lord come in and have FREE ACCESS to the heart He can already see.
©2017 Andrea Nancille Jackson/Global Girl Ministries
