Are you a Garage or a Temple?

2^nd Corinthians 5:1

We, our lives are a building. We need to see what we are putting in our building. Do we treat our lives like a garage or do we treat it like a temple of God?

What goes in the garage? Just about everything. Lawn mowers, dirty rags, gas and oil, left over paint, boxes, trash, you name it, it probably is in the garage.

To many people treat their lives like a garage, they put anything and everything in their lives.

Luk 11:24-26  When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.  (25)  And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished.  (26)  Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.

The heart of every unconverted sinner is the devil’s palace, where he dwells, and where he rules. There is a kind of peace in the heart of an unconverted soul, while the devil, as a strong man armed, keeps it. The sinner is secure, has no doubt concerning the goodness of his state, nor any dread of the judgment to come.

Mat 6:19-23  Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:  (20)  But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:  (21)  For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.  (22)  The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.  (23)  But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!

Instead of being an Earthly house, we are to be a spiritual house.

1Pe 2:5  Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

We are not to be the garage but we are to be a the temple of God.

1Co 3:16-17  Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?  (17)  If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

Eph 2:20-22  And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;  (21)  In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:  (22)  In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

1Co 6:19-20  What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?  (20)  For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

Let us see how the temple of old was regarded.

1Ch 29:2-5 (2)  Now I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God the gold for things to be made of gold, and the silver for things of silver, and the brass for things of brass, the iron for things of iron, and wood for things of wood; onyx stones, and stones to be set, glistering stones, and of divers colours, and all manner of precious stones, and marble stones in abundance.  (3)  Moreover, because I have set my affection to the house of my God, I have of mine own proper good, of gold and silver, which I have given to the house of my God, over and above all that I have prepared for the holy house,  (4)  Even three thousand talents of gold, of the gold of Ophir, and seven thousand talents of refined silver, to overlay the walls of the houses withal:  (5)  The gold for things of gold, and the silver for things of silver, and for all manner of work to be made by the hands of artificers. And who then is willing to consecrate his service this day unto the LORD?

1Ki 5:17-18  And the king commanded, and they brought great stones, costly stones, and hewed stones, to lay the foundation of the house.  (18)  And Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders did hew them, and the stonesquarers: so they prepared timber and stones to build the house.

1Ki 6:7  And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building.

2Ch 3:8-10  And he made the most holy house, the length whereof was according to the breadth of the house, twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof twenty cubits: and he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents.  (9)  And the weight of the nails was fifty shekels of gold. And he overlaid the upper chambers with gold.  (10)  And in the most holy house he made two cherubims of image work, and overlaid them with gold.

We can see the temple was not going to be used for a garage, but it was holy and special.

They would not compromise and let just anything or any one help.

Ezr 4:1-3  Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded the temple unto the LORD God of Israel;  (2)  Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither.  (3)  But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the LORD God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia hath commanded us.

Are we the temple of God, Or are we a garage?