Years ago, I was in Japan and went on a tour during which they took us to places where we were asked to remove our shoes. They considered these to be very high places of consecrated activities, such as the presentation of offerings and incense. There was a statue of Buddha which they made offerings to. I would not go in but saw it through a large open door. There were scores of bells and many small containers of expensive substance housed there. The place was considered very sacred because it was a place to transfer gifts to some higher point of worship. There were signs indicating the many things forbidden in these places which they called shrines. Shoes, for instance, were not allowed through the door. There was only one thing allowed here, they called it worship.
When Almighty God thinks of His own people, what does He know them as? God sees our body as a temple. The original definition of that word is: shrine. 1 Corinthians 6:19 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? V.20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Did the Japanese understand something about a shrine that we ourselves deface and disvalue before the true God? The purpose of our body is to temple the Holy Ghost. This is done with a grand welcoming from the once hell-bound human being. We present gifts and offerings of praise and thanksgiving, giving 100% of ourselves here. This is the first and most important thing in our entire life. When this is done, there is splendor and beauty that exists here. This royal practice is heavenly and powerful and so pure. To be at peace with God in this inner curriculum of selfish tendencies and yet defray all circumstantial power of the imagination is something only found where the Holy Spirit spreads his wings of serenity. Oh Hallelujah! Here we can walk in heaven’s balance contained within the human heart. This treasure in an earthen vessel is Holy before God and therefore Satan seeks to desecrate it, bringing continuous trouble to it. These are the inner chambers where the prayers of the saints prevail through faith that is not complex.
There are spiritual enemies that are persistent against this harmony. The accord is not all that visible from the soul of carnal man, but is a spiritual threat in the highest capacity because of the Holy Spirit’s unseen presence. It is the culmination of inspiration, revelation, and illumination as portals of Heaven presented on Earth. The Cain from Eden is never at rest in this pleasant portrait. Cain fights it within or without because he is a vehicle of jealousy to outperform everyone. Everyone is a threat to Cain. Cain is never satisfied with his own shoes. Until we are comforted and can rest in the shoes God designed for us, we are failures to the will of God.
Hebrews 10:5 Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. Religious pragmatism appeals to the idea that we need to be a victim in order to be a sacrifice. We are no longer victims in sacrifice for offering. What we are, is a prepared body fitted to do the will of God. V.7 Then said I, Lo, I come in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God. Our task is a simple one to fulfill. We are here to do the will of God.
Scores of people have asked me down through the years how to know the will of God for their lives. I have only one answer to this self-adjusted and complex question: YOU KNOW! Within the daily activities of a temple of His glory, residing within a transformed life, there will always be a lineup of legitimate notations drawing our attention to a question of the simple will of God. Within the heart of the saint there is rest and peace in His will. The will of God is not an imagination. It is not in your head but profoundly quiet in your heart. In the heart, it is never covered with confusion. In the mind, it is seldom without confusion. What is the will of God for your life? You know, now walk therein.
