When we think about ourselves as human beings, we would hardly consider ourselves as a structure, object or place. Yet the Bible describes God’s people in such a way: as a dwelling place, His house, and as materials made for building.
In chapter 25 of the book of Exodus, we are presented with an offering of raw materials and precise instructions for building:
…take for Me a heave offering. From every man whose heart makes him willing you shall take My heave offering. / And let them make a sanctuary for Me that I may dwell in their midst; / According to all that I show you, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, even so shall you make it. (vv. 2; 8-9)
Why are these specific materials the content of the offering, and, not just any offering, but a heave offering — something uplifted? Do we have materials to offer, to be lifted up? Moses did not randomly collect materials for building the tabernacle of God; they were specifically selected materials. And these materials were presented as an offering, something processed or sanctified. This is the basic requirement in order for the materials to be used for building God’s dwelling place with man.
So how were the materials prepared? These materials were with the children of Israel in their daily living throughout this wilderness journey. But what makes some items worthy or acceptable and others not? Not all materials were given, offered and accepted. There is a standard to determine whether the offering is accepted. This has everything to do with the experience of the children of Israel coming out and being reconstituted as God’s people. All of the experiences of the children of Israel were for depositing something divine into them, changing them from within. From this constituting process, the children of Israel have something not of themselves to offer up but Christ to be used for the building of His dwelling place.
Today, it is the same with us as His New Testament believers in this age. We are also building a dwelling place for God as His church. Just as the Israelites needed those experiences in the wilderness to be made God’s people essentially, we too cannot miss this in our daily living. As the church today, we cannot give something without this process, no matter how good or presentable it may be. The Lord is not looking for our performance or efforts, but our experience of something of Christ constituted in us experientially. In our day-to-day, where is He? Are we gaining Him in our thinking, environments, desires towards His building? What do we truly care about? If Christ is not essentially in our experiences, the base of acceptance is gone and there is no building from us — what we are offering is just common and will never build up the church. Today, we must be processed, sanctified to build His dwelling place in this age.
(Above are notes of fellowship taken from a gathering on 11/26/2023, not reviewed by the speaker.)