As a little girl, I would lay awake at night, snuggled up in my patchwork comforter on the top bunk, and stare at the bumps in my ceiling. I would trace puppies, cats, penguins, dragons, houses, human faces, and other such things with my eyes and arms. I remember one night thinking about Heaven and Hell. Pretty odd for an elementary student, right? That night I pointed up at the ceiling and traced an imaginary line among my menagerie of imaginary pictures and thought: That side is Heaven and this side is Hell. For some reason, that made sense to me: that God would live on a side of my ceiling while Satan lived on the other.
If you’ve read your Bible and dived into the book of Exodus, you will have extensive knowledge of the tabernacle and the importance and purpose of the structure. Fast forward to the time of Jesus’ birth, and we have the Temple built by Herod. While the new Temple was made of precious stone instead of cloth and wood like the Tabernacle, they were made with roughly the same spaces in mind: the Most Holy Place (Where God resided), the Holy Place (where only the Priests could go), and the Outer Courts (where anyone could gather). With the construction of Herod’s temple, there were some extra divisions made in the court area. Essentially, they added the men’s court (reserved for men) and the women’s court.
Can you imagine, dear ladies, being told that you can go no farther than the lobby at church and then relying on your father or husband to relate what the pastor preached? Anna the Prophetess, in Luke 2:36-38, lived life this way as a widow for 84 years. She loved God so much that she tried to get as physically close to Him as possible during that time.
“[Anna] never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying”
(Luke 2:37)
I want you to take a moment and just reflect on that for a moment. Even though Anna fasted, prayed, and spent her time in the temple, she was still full of sin and therefore couldn’t be in the presence of God. But if you read Luke 2:22-40, you will read something amazing. God in the flesh, the redeemer, was being held in the arms of Mary on his way to be consecrated to the Lord, His Heavenly Father, and Anna recognized Jesus for who He was: The Messiah.
God doesn’t live in a building
Because of Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection, God no longer lives in the Most Holy Place inside the temple. In fact, Luke 23:45 says,
“the curtain of the temple was torn in two.”
The curtain that the verse refers to is the thick, beautiful curtain that separated God from the Priests. It was a literal barrier between us and God that was no longer needed after that day because once you declare that Jesus is the Son of God, sent as a baby, and crucified for your sins so that you can have everlasting life, God comes to live INSIDE of you in the form of the Holy Spirit.
Looking back at the moment when I traced the line on the ceiling and divided it into Heaven and Hell, I know that in my childish musings I had forgotten that God lived inside my heart. And to be honest, I don’t remember the day I asked Jesus into my heart for the first time (my parents said that I was about 4 years old), but since that day, I have re-devoted my life to God.
I have some tough questions for you, dear reader: Where does God live in your life? Have you invited Him into your heart or is He out of reach behind a barrier of your own making? Take a moment, pray today, and reflect on this passage and what a gift we have been given in the form of Jesus.
Bethany Thomas is the Publicity Coordinator and a contributing writer for Shaken & Stirred. She is a daughter of God, a wife, and a dog mom. When not writing for the blog, you are most likely to find her reading a fantasy novel or crafting at her home in Sapulpa, OK.
Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash