Me? The Dwelling Place of God? Not Me!

Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature;

the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

I Corinthians 5:17

Do you not know that you are a temple of God,

and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

I Corinthians 3:16

You must not call what God has cleansed, common.

Acts 10:15

When I was counseling, talking to the hurting people sitting by my side on the sofa, listening to their stories of pain and sadness, guilt and rejection, the most incredulous looks and words of denial would come from them when I shared with them who they now are as Believers in Christ Jesus. “But, Anabel! You don’t know me! I’m a real loser! I’ve done so many things that I am terribly ashamed of, things I should not have done’knowing full well that I was wrong.” I would say to them, “No, you are absolutely right. I don’t really know you, but then I’m not the One telling you who you now are in Christ’and the One who is saying this to you knows you intimately’every detail of your life is open to Him. So, He says that you’re new, that you’re the temple of God, that you’re all these amazing things and He can tell you this because He is the One Who created you, Who knows you’completely’and He is the One Who has made you all of these beautiful things: holy, blameless, loved, forgiven. You became all of this’incredible’when you accepted Him as your Lord, your Savior, and your Life.

There are very few of us who have not looked hard at ourselves and said, “How can that be? Me? The temple of God? Me? A new creation? No way!” And what we are implying is that God is lying to us’aren’t we? God is omniscient; that means that He is “all-knowing.” We so often see ourselves as damaged goods, faulty merchandise, a less-than-perfect specimen spurned by a God who has examined us and found us sadly lacking.

My grandson, Will (5), was here last weekend.We read a lot of books, but I was especially taken with Max Lucado’s You Are Special. The story tells us about the Wemmicks, who took pride in how diligent they were in “judging” the people in their community. They would dutifully and joyfully give them stars if they proved themselves special or accomplished, something worthy of praise, or dots if they were not special and did not perform up to their expectations. Some of them had lots of stars, and they were happy little Wemmicks. But there were some who were covered with dots, and they were very unhappy, rejected, hopeless little Wemmicks. (Sound like where you live?) The bottom line of Mr. Lucado’s story is that the Person who created you loves you and is not in the game of dispersing stars and dots. Your assignment is to remember who you are in your Creator’s eyes! (Sound like the verses above? Sound like what God’your Creator’has said about you?)

I doubt if there’s a single person who has not been given a good share of dots through the years’maybe mom and dad, maybe your peers, maybe your spouse, or your superior at work. You know what we need to do? Go stand in front of the bathroom mirror, imagine all of the “dots” and imagine pulling them off and throwing them in the toilet’then flush! Now look at yourself through His eyes and see your self “dotless!” And we don’t need a lot of stars pasted on to see ourselves as our Creator sees us. We just need to believe Him when He says, “You are so special! You are the temple of God! You are a new creature. You are mine and I love you. Now go love those other “Wemmicks” and tell them about Me and My love.”

What a beautiful lesson for our children to learn as they leave the haven of home and go out into a world of “stars and dots.”

Thank you, Mr. Lucado, for giving me a tool to help me teach my children who they are in Christ so that they can face their world knowing they are loved and very special’not a single “dot” anywhere!

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom

and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His

judgments and unfathomable His ways!

Romans 11:33