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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Building the House of God, #6
Why gaze in envy, O rugged mountains, at the mountain where God chooses to reign, where the LORD himself will dwell forever? The chariots of God are tens of thousands and thousands of thousands; the Lord has come from Sinai into his sanctuary. When you ascended on high, you led captives in your train; you received gifts from men, even from the rebellious—that you, O LORD God, might dwell there. (Psalms 68:16-18—NIV)
We have just taught that the purpose of our receiving gifts and ministries is that each member of the Church, the Body of Christ, might come to maturity in the Lord.
Next we will consider the purpose of bringing each member to maturity. Obviously this is not so we can recline on our couch in our mansion in Heaven. Such retirement requires little maturity.
The Purpose of Our Being Brought to Maturity
Does the above passage sound familiar? It ought to. This is the Psalm that Paul was quoting in the fourth chapter of the Book of Ephesians.
The "rugged mountains" refers to religious people, including self-willed Christians, who look with envy at the saints who have taken up their cross and are following the Lord Jesus. Satan can always enter self-willed people and motivate them to slander the saints.
Pharisees and priests murdered Jesus because of envy. Satan is envious of Christ and can always move in people who are envious of God's elect.
The mountain that is the object of envy is Mount Zion. Mount Zion is a symbolic term referring to Christ—Head and Body.
Now we come to the purpose of building up the members of the Body of Christ to maturity: "where God chooses to reign, where the LORD himself will dwell forever." God has chosen to reign and dwell forever in Mount Zion, in Christ, Head and Body.
God is seeking a house for Himself. In that house there will be many dwelling places. The dwelling place is first Jesus Christ, and after that the members of the Body of Christ.
Each saint, if we could see him or her in the spirit realm, is as a great palace of which the building blocks have been torn down and are lying around in random order. The purpose of the gifts and ministries given by the ascended Christ is that the palace that each saint is will be erected, block placed next to its block, until a majestic structure has been erected.
Christ went to the cross, and then to Heaven to sprinkle His atoning blood before the Mercy Seat. After this He sent forth His Holy Spirit to accomplish the work of building the many varied palaces. Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, has given a variety of gifts and ministries to the members of the Body that the Body might build itself up in love.
God is very fussy about His dwelling place. First of all, He will dwell only in Christ; so if we want to have God dwelling in us we must have Christ built up in us.
The millions of chariots are referring to God's saints. Each saint is to become a chariot in which God can go here and there.
To be continued.