2017 Recording:

As a Christian, do you know that you are a child of God, and should possess the noble and glorious image of a prince or princess, but in reality, you find yourself riddled with problems and full of bad habits? Do not be discouraged! The process of building a Christian life is like Solomon building the temple, it is a work of meticulous craftsmanship. In this chapter, the teacher will interpret the records of Solomon's construction of the temple to answer the question of how Christians can live out the glorious life of the Father God!

Questions for Reflection:

• After reading Chapter 7 about the construction of the temple, what kind of temple do you think it is? If you were in it, how would you feel?

• Do you know where the temple of God is in the New Testament? Combining the construction of the temple, talk about how God is building the temple in the New Testament today.

• Combining the meaning of the temple in the New Testament, explain what the bronze sea, lions, oxen, and cherubim symbolize respectively.

Today, when we read Chapter 7, it seems that we cannot really understand it, but one thing you can read is that the temple of Jehovah God is very noble and exquisite. In fact, in the New Testament, our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and each person's life is also very exquisite in the process of being shaped in God's hands. So don't think that this chapter is about the temple, in fact, it is about the shaping of our hearts. There are several things we need to be especially careful about when examining ourselves today.

Meticulous Carving, Building Life After Believing

Yesterday a sister sent me an email asking me whether it is better to pray in the morning or in the evening, I said it is better to fix a time. Then she asked me why fix a time. Actually, I understand what she is asking me. Do you know why she asked me this question? At that time, I had a feeling in my heart, I told her, to worship our God, you cannot say that I will pray when I have this time, and I will not pray when it is inconvenient. I will pray when I want to pray, and if I don't want to pray, then forget it. This is like saying that I will pray when other things are not busy, and if I am busy, then forget it. If you have this attitude, God will have this attitude towards you. How you treat God, God will treat you. If God only looks at you when He has time, and forgets about you when He doesn't have time, then you are in big trouble.

Why do I say to fix this time? Fixing it is a determination. I must set aside this time no matter what to sanctify it, not according to my time, not because I am busy or not, but because I want to do my best to keep it holy, and you will find that God will definitely do the same for you. So, to solve a problem, one must solve the attitude problem in people. Whether the attitude is clean or unclean, you need to build a bronze sea in your heart to do the work of cleansing. Building a bronze sea is actually a very complicated work, and solving problems in the depths of people's hearts is a meticulous work. You cannot be very rough, because people's feelings are very precise.

I want to show you that the bases of the basins mentioned here have oxen, lions, and cherubim on them. You must have the heart of a lion inside you. The lion is the king of beasts, the image of a king, so you must have the image of a lion, which is the image of a king. Jesus Christ is the Lion of Judah, so there is a line in the hymn we sing, The Lion of Judah has overcome. What is the ox? It is diligence. You have to carve the image of diligence in yourself. In fact, the things outside of people are controlled by the things inside you. And the cherubim are spiritual power.

In fact, today we really don't quite understand what it describes in our hearts, and how we should correspond to it. But we know that there are many things in our hearts that we must deal with. For example, if a person gossips, this is actually a problem that needs to be solved in this person. After meticulous carving, this person will remove the habit of gossiping. In fact, building our life after believing is to carve and polish us from scrap metal into the image of a noble, glorious, diligent, and powerful prince. The two pillars in front of the temple are nobility and dignity. Because our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

The life of believing must deal with the problems inside us. The most fashionable idea now is to like to cope. Believing is just something I do to cope with when I have time, it is a part of my amateur life. A few days ago, one of our sisters had just believed not long ago, and as a result, the Christian friends she knew told her not to believe too fanatically. We seriously and meticulously carve and then shape a Christian life, according to the appearance and attitude of building this temple, but for many people, it is too fanatical. If you do not build your life with a meticulous attitude, but just do it casually, they say that this is normal. In fact, you must know that the Christian life is a work of constantly shaping, constantly perfecting, and meticulously carving. Until today, my life and my wife's life are still often meticulously carved in the hands of God, dealing with one problem after another. Thank the Lord, I see that the lives of the brothers and sisters are all in the process of growth, and I begin to see the miraculous work of God is in building the glorious temple of God.

Cultivating a Noble Character

By verse 48, there is the golden altar, the golden table for the bread of Presence, and then the golden lampstand, five on the left and five on the right. All of these are constructed with gold. Gold represents nobility, and we must possess nobility within our hearts. Therefore, the life of a Christian should be able to cultivate inner nobility, so that one can live out nobility. If you are noble inside, even if you are changing diapers for a patient, doing such work, you are still a noble person, because you are noble within. So everyone, begin to constantly cultivate the nobility within yourselves. If the walls within you, your entire inner being, are walls of wood or walls of stone, then in the days to come, you must overlay them with gold. If the table for the bread of Presence within you is made of wood, you must overlay it with gold. Use gold to build up that inner nobility.