Proverbs 9:4-6

Jesus came for and calls out to the uneducated, the naive, the immature, the simple-minded.

This is who He invites to His banquet table.

These are who we often ignore.

John 2:19-21

Jesus replaced the Temple.

Since about A.D. 30, the place to meet God, worship Him, learn about Him, has been Jesus of Nazareth. With Him living in us, we are what Richard Foster calls “Portable Sanctuaries.”

One of the things Jesus accomplished thru His death and resurrection was the release of the Holy Spirit to empower and indwell each one of us. This is a mysterious work that could only be brought to fruition by Perfection–the Son of God.

The more we die to ourselves, to our human desires, and self-centered “needs”, the more the Holy Spirit shines thru us and we become more like Jesus Himself–out prototype for a new kind of humanity. Being made in the image of God, our primary purpose is to become Jesus, who was the perfect image of God, for in Him nothing was in the way for the Holy Spirit to fully animate Him.

Even with this supernatural work done for us, waiting for our acceptance and embrace (placing ourselves in the way of grace), we still try to reach God by our own human power. And as a Pittsburgh police officer once told me, “NOT GONNA HAPPEN!”