One day, while reading Isaiah 66:1, my somewhat selfish life turned upside down. God asked Isaiah the following question, “Where is the house that you will build Me and where is the place of My rest?”
We often ask ourselves the question what we can do to please God, to have Him smiling back at us. One major requirement God has for us, is that we should trust in Him (Psalm 9:10). It pleases God tremendously to see us putting our faith in Him while casting all our fears aside, because He is our Saviour. To honour God as our loving Father demonstrates our trust in Him.
The verb, “rest”, in the Bible, is often applied in the context of surrender and trust. Every time we surrender into the arms of God, we confirm that we put our trust in Him and at that moment, we enter into His rest. (Hebrews 4) (I don’t have the time to explain it now but the word, rest, as mentioned in Hebrews is not about the Sabbath or when we die, but surrendering into the hands of God in faith, causing us to have peace and harmony while we are alive.)
Awesome – God does everything for those who believe in Jesus. He is building our eternal home in heaven while we are able to find our rest in Him since the time when we became born again.
Getting back to the question God put before Isaiah, we realise that God is too big to fit into a building, a temple or church on earth. However, He decided to fit His presence into our hearts! (1 Cor 3:16, 6:15,19).
We are His chosen house!
God does not get tired either and yet, He desires to have a place of rest. It is difficult to grasp the full picture but the truth is……. that place of rest is also us!
We have the most awesome God, the only God there is in the universe and He chooses people like us as His temple and His resting place!
Do you know that this is the reason why you are alive?
We have one purpose in life and that is to serve God by making Him feel welcome in His temple, and then to conduct our lives in such a way through faith that He will find rest in us! That happens when we say something when we ought to, and do whatever is required of us the moment it is needed.
He also trusts us to keep away from doing or thinking anything that would hurt Him.
Whatever we do as His temple, His house, He should always feel welcome and able to find peace and harmony in and through us! Only then, can the question that God put before Isaiah be answered.