He was most carried away with the God who lived there. It was because it was God’s house that he loved it. That house is no more. It was destroyed twice and has now been replaced. And is the replacement better? Is it a place where we love to be because God is there?
The replacement is much more versatile. God now lives in a temple made up of the living stones of the people who belong to Jesus. He lives among them through his Spirit. He has taken up residence in the church. Not in church buildings but in the meetings of the church. In the church gathered together as the body of Christ.
So we can say about our local church, “What a lovely home!” What makes it lovely? The stones may be attractive, or they could be broken and dusty. But the big attraction is the one who lives there. It is a very interesting phenomenon that God chooses to live in homes that many Christians don’t want to live in.
That is God by his Spirit is always present in the meetings of his church, and makes himself known to us by his words to us. He speaks to us. Yes he speaks through human messengers who don’t always speak like angels (perhaps that is a mercy). But it is God who speaks and gathers his people together to himself week by week.
How lovely that is. How wonderful to appear before God week by week in the midst of his people.
Dale