[This is kind of a long post, but it is good stuff and I challenge you, Brothers, to step up to the call]
Today, after an amazingly encouraging day of work and celebration I sat in my car and read 2 Chronicles 29:1-36. I love it when the Old Testament comes alive when I read it.
This passage is about King Hezekiah and how he breaks the pattern of chronically evil kings. He becomes king at the age of 25 and he leads his people to wholeness and restoration. The part that jumped of the page and put a choke hold on my lungs starts in verse 15 where it says,
15 When they had assembled their fellow Levites and consecrated themselves, they went in to purify the temple of the LORD, as the king had ordered, following the word of the LORD. 16 The priests went into the sanctuary of the LORD to purify it. They brought out to the courtyard of the LORD’s temple everything unclean that they found in the temple of the LORD. The Levites took it and carried it out to the Kidron Valley. 17They began the consecration on the first day of the first month, and by the eighth day of the month they reached the portico of the LORD. For eight more days they consecrated the temple of the LORD itself, finishing on the sixteenth day of the first month.
18 Then they went in to King Hezekiah and reported: “We have purified the entire temple of the LORD, the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the table for setting out the consecrated bread, with all its articles. 19 We have prepared and consecrated all the articles that King Ahaz removed in his unfaithfulness while he was king. They are now in front of the LORD’s altar.”
King Hezekiah had gathered this band of brothers - the Levites, those chosen to serve and protect the Lord in the sanctuary - and led them in purity. But that's not even all of it. These priests had to first consecrate themselves. Webster's dictionary defines the action of consecration as this: to make or declare sacred; especially : to devote irrevocably to the worship of God by a solemn ceremony.
Now it's one thing to dedicate and object or a place; to make holy a thing. But to consecrate yourself for the irrevocable worship of the living God is another thing entirely.
But these kings and priests of old did not even stop there. They took the next, most mind blowing step yet. The purified the temple.
Now we're not talking a little sprinkling or the rubbing on of some Purell. This was a sixteen day ceremony that rid the temple, the house of God on earth, from all the impurity, all the filth of the kings that came before. And there was a lot of filth. Earlier kings had literally prostituted themselves and their people in the holy house of God. They had sold the gold and the jewels for blood money, they took the spears and the shields and the weaponry to fight unholy wars, they worshiped the gods of their neighbors.
There was a lot of brokenness, bleeding, hurt, dirt and sorrow to be washed away. And these servants of God did it. They dedicated themselves to getting on there hands and knees and doing what the People could not do for themselves.
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So this got me thinking. We no longer have the Temple in Jerusalem to worship in. But we do still have a temple. Paul tells us in his letters to the Corinthians that our bodies are a temple for the Holy Spirit and that, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, God comes and dwells with us and uses us. our physical selves, as His dwelling place, as His place of operation. This is where it gets exciting...
Brothers, the calling has not dissipated and the temple has not gotten any less foul. How beautiful would it be if you consecrated yourself to the service of the Lord and dedicated yourself to the purifying and maintaining of the temples of your fellow brothers and sisters.
I got so excited about the idea that somewhere out there are men of God who take up their responsibility to maintain, guard and value the purity of their sisters in Christ. That there might be people out there who daily consecrate themselves to the work of the Lord and who live on purpose and with fire.
I want to be one of those people. One who lives with a passion and who understands the value and sacredness of purity -physical, emotional and spiritual purity. And I want to build relationships with people who will recognize this value as well and daily work with me to wash away the filth.
The best part is the last verse where it says, "36 Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced at what God had brought about for his people, because it was done so quickly." After all that Hezekiah did for his people and his nation he recognized that it was not he who did it at all. It was God who used him to do this amazing thing. How great is our God.
“Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you.” - Joshua 3:5
