Matthew 7:13 -14 gives us a good description of the trailway to temple. The New Living Translation version of the Bible states, "You can enter God's kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose the easy way. But the gateway to life is small, and the road is narrow; and only a few ever find it." As one goes deeper and further into the Christian walk, one will defintely discover that the trailway to temple living will not only become more narrower, but more rockier and in many cases, to the point where you are the trailblazer paving the paths into unexplored and unchartered foreign lands. A good reference material that explains this process in an allegorical mode of thought is the book Pilgrim's Progress by John Buyan. In this book, we see the story about a man named "Christian" who decides to take the journey down the narrow road to Godly living. He meets many strange and evil people ("Lust" and "Greed" are the names of some of these characters) who try to divert the Spiritual walk and travels of Christian. Christian is sometimes able to outright see the evil of these men and women and avoids them but in some instances, he partakes friendship with some of these seedy characters and ends up getting robbed, beaten, etc. until angels and other noble people ("Love" and "Joy" are the names of some of these characters) rescue him and help him further walk the narrower pathway to God.
We are a lot like "Christian" mentioned in the last paragraph. We need Godly friends and warriors that can walk with us at all time. Whether the narrow pathway is slightly smooth or whether the pathway becomes more narrower and rockier. Good Christian fellowship with Spiritual accountability is essential to our daily walk in Christ. With this in mind, there needs to be a proper perspective and balance of the Word, prayer, worship, and action in our lives. We can not effectively pray, worship and put into action Christian principles without reading the Word of God to learn how to worship, pray, and put Godly principles in action. We sometimes can not understand the Word of God unless we pray to God and worship him in Spirit and in truth. When we fail to achieve this balance in our spiritual lives, we are subject to error, following false teachings, and our spiritual vision becoming deluded to the point where what we think is narrow is wide or in some cases, what we think is wide is actually narrow.
One thing that I can not stress to you in order to help you to walk the trailway to temple is to find a church that is sold-out for God and follows the Word of God. You need to find that church and learn to submit to the leaders, pay your tithes and offerings, worship the Lord in spirit and in truth, fellowship with the fellow believers, and participate in programs that fulfill the Great Commission. When you meet others not of the Christian faith, be prepared in love to contend for the faith by being rational and Scriptural, not judgmental and irrational.
Even though we have been rescued from the state of totem through the death of Jesus at Calvary and his resurrection on the third day, we experience and battle everyday the constant war of dying unto sin in order to be alive unto Christ. Everyday we make choices whether to or whether not to allow a temptation to influence our action to committ a tresspass by performing a taboo that if left undealt with, will lead us back into the wide pathway to the state of totem instead of the marrow trailway to temple. The Christian lifestyle is one that promotes the believer to move and progress forward into the love, mercy, and grace provided by God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. The Christian lifestyle is not meant to be a journey backwards into time, technology, 'sanitized tribalisms', and culture by instilling the Jewish laws along with the New Covenant. Paul spent most of his ministry breaking down this mode of thinking as he wrote to the church at Galatia and in his writings to Titus in Crete as told in Titus 1:10-14. We even see Paul tell Titus to sternly rebuke those who teach the re-legalism of adding Jewish rituals to the Christian walk. In fact, Paul refers to some of their teachings as "myths and fables".
The point in walking the trailway to temple is not to be "re-legalized". This does not mean going from one extreme of legalism to an equal and opposite extreme of grace. The point of Holy Temple living is not to re-sew and repair the ripped veil that Jesus' death brought down at Calvary. The point of Holy Temple living is to experience the privilege of entering the Holy of Holies and come boldly before the Throne of God paid in full by Jesus. Because Jesus paid the price for us to come into the Holy of Holies, why are we trying to re-sew the veil and forcing people to enter in only if they pay a "price" of money and "good deeds" based on our own interpretations of standards consisting of legalistic Old Covenant rites instead of being based on the New Covenant outpouring of the shed blood of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit? Such actions of re-legalism, re-sewing the temple veil, and "re-Moses", only focuses the attention from the redemptive power of Christ in a lifestyle to a works-based system. The re-legalism usually will force people to dilute their faith by performing actions wrapped up and disguised as "good deeds" to earn brownie points instead of obeying the commandments of God to further purify the life of the believer. In fact, the re-legalism and the re-Moses concepts actually undermine the apostolic foundations of Christ by actually undermining the divinity of Christ. As Moses died, the people mourned, a new generation awoke from a deadened state of doubt and rebellion, and the Lord supernaturally cleared the Jordan river for Joshua and the new generation to cross over into the promise land, the legalism / re-legalism / re-Moses must be crucified to death in order for the now cleansed and joyous believer to enter the promise land of the Christian lifestyle through the supernatural infilling of the Holy Spirit. Where the temple was portable and only the high priest could atone for the sins in the Old Covenant while the common man stayed in the outer court. The temple in the New Covenant is both mobile and portable with the sins of the individual already atoned by Jesus for us to enter the Holy of Holies and experience another dimension of the Spirit-filled life.
Click here for part four of Trailway to Temple.
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