The Daily Word of Righteousness

The False and the True, continued

Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord. Or where will my resting place be? (Acts 7:49—NIV)

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Fight the good fight of faith.

Endure to the end and you thus will be saved from Satan and brought into the Person and will of God through Christ.

God is seeking a house, a place of rest for Himself. This is the purpose behind the creation of man. Any program that does not provide a house for God, a holy temple in which God can find rest, is not the Divine program of salvation.

As long as we are filled with the love of the world we cannot serve as a house for God. God cannot find rest in us until the love of the world has been removed from us.

As long as we are yielding to the passions and lusts of our flesh we cannot serve as a house for God. What fellowship can God have with evil?

What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."  "Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you." (II Corinthians 6:16,17—NIV)

As long as we are filled with our self-will and personal ambition we cannot possibly serve as the house of God. How can God find rest in us when we are being driven about by our own will, our own desires? He cannot and He will not attempt to do so. If we would be the house of God we must turn over to God all of our own plans and ambitions.

We may be forgiven, but that is beside the point. The purpose of the Gospel is to provide a house for God, and until that house has been prepared God's will has not been accomplished in us.

The true Gospel of Jesus Christ does indeed create a house for God, a place where He can rest. The program of salvation we have outlined above provides such a holy house and place of rest for God and for us also.

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22—NIV)

But using the name of Jesus Christ as a pass out of Hell and a ticket to a mansion in Heaven solves none of God problems, meets none of His needs. The stated purpose of the current formula is not to please God but to protect us from suffering and bring the untransformed believer to the great retirement home in the sky. (from The False and the True)