Morning, June 22, adapted from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“Yes, it is He who will build the temple of the LORD, and He who will bear the honor.” Zechariah 6:13 NASB

Christ himself is the builder of his spiritual temple, and he has built it on the mountains of his unchangeable affection, his all-powerful grace, and his unfailing truthfulness. But as it was in Solomon’s temple, so it is in Jesus’ temple; the materials need preparation. There are the “Cedars of Lebanon,” but they are not framed for the building; they are not cut down, and shaped, and made into those planks of cedar, whose fragrant beauty shall bring rejoicing to the courts of the Lord’s house in heaven. There are also the rough stones still in the quarry, they must be cut from the quarry, cut to fit exactly. All this is Christ’s own work. Each individual believer is being prepared, and polished, and made ready for his place in the temple; but Christ’s own hand performs the preparation-work. Afflictions cannot purify and free us from sin, except as they are used by him to this end. Our prayers and efforts cannot make us ready for heaven, apart from the hand of Jesus, who molds our hearts exactly right.

As in the building of Solomon’s temple, “there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron, heard in the house,” because all was prepared and brought perfectly ready for the exact spot it was to occupy–so is it with the temple which Jesus builds; the preparation is all done on earth. When we reach heaven, there will be no sanctifying us there, no grinding us to shape with affliction, no honing us smooth with suffering. No, we must be made fit here–all that Christ will do beforehand; and when he has done it, we shall be ferried by a loving hand across the stream of death, and brought to the heavenly Jerusalem, to abide as eternal parts of that building, the temple of our Lord.

“Beneath his eye and care,

The edifice shall rise,

Majestic, strong, and fair,

And shine above the skies.”