Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? 1 Corinthians 3:16. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? 1 Corinthians 6:14, 19.

Do you ever wish you were a songwriter and could write notes so beautiful they would glorify God and sing of the wonders He does? What song can I sing that brings joy to God? What instruments show power, love, joy, sacrifice, holiness? Can we sing a song of love for the One who loves so well? Can we sing a song of hope that our sins will be no more?

Can we understand that we are God’s temple where Holy Spirit dwells? Can we grasp we are members of Christ Himself? I hope we can with God’s help because we need His help for everything good and He is good.

And now looking back we see in 1 Kings 5 the preparations for the temple building David longed to build to honor God and that will built by his son, Solomon. King Solomon conscripted laborers from all Israel – thirty thousand men. He sent them off to Lebanon in shifts of ten thousand a month, so that they spent one month in Lebanon and two months at home. Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor. Solomon had seventy thousand carriers and eighty thousand stonecutters in the hills, as well as thirty-three hundred foremen who supervised the project and directed the workers. At the king’s command they removed from the quarry large blocks of high-grade stone to provide a foundation of dressed stone for the temple. The craftsmen of Solomon and Hiram and workers from Byblos cut and prepared the timber and stone for the building of the temple. v. 13-18.

Can you imagine ten thousand men moving through the land to go to labor and return home as the next shift takes their place? Think of the need for organization for this many people including food, water, shelter, tools, skill.

And what of the building that is us? What is our foundation? Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his 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.

Can we sing a song about that?

In the notes below it said: Byblos was located north of what is now Beirut, near the cedar forest. These men were Phoenicians, probably skilled shipbuilders, but employed for this project.

And Hiram, king of Tyre, friend of David, provided the cedar and juniper logs for the temple that were floated down on rafts to the staging area for work to be done, v. 1-12. Looking up Tyre: Located on the southern coast of Lebanon, 83 km south of Beirut. The antique town of Tyre was the great Phoenician city that reigned over the seas and founded prosperous colonies such as Cadiz and Carthage and according to legend, was the place of the discovery of purple pigment.

Israelis and Phoenicians and people of other nations living in Israel worked together to build the physical temple building. That was then. Then and now we humans so diverse in nationality, customs and faiths are being built into something so much better than any physical building and it takes much longer. Building stones can be constructed with purpose and design. Only in God will we be built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. Only in God. He alone is Love capable of such a feat.

What song can we sing to celebrate that? What song can we sing to enlighten our hearts so we can see? Our Creator God loves us well. I have heard our lives described as a tapestry that from the back looks disordered, messy, confused; but from the front the colors blend richly together and show something beautiful and lovely. The backs of our rough material show colors of anger, sorrow, fear, pride; as well as joy, hope, goodness, kindness…all jumbled together in a pattern we cannot discern. God knows. God sees and is working in each one of us and He is patient. We are being built right now. Thank You, Lord, that You know the design of each one of us. Thank You for so great a love and so wonderful a hope!