Acts 17:24
“God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands."
The Lord opened my understanding with this verse recently in an astounding way which I would like to share with you. The word says that we, as new creation believers are now the temple of the Living God, according to 2Corinthians 6:16. So, if we couple our study verse with 2 Corinthians 6:16, we come to understand that God has made each of us and we had nothing to do with it. If you want to be hyper-spiritual you could argue that people, in general were created with the Word of God and thus not created with hands - which is also true. This, however, is the simplest and most superficial understanding of the verse. What the Lord showed me is much deeper.
The word “made” in Acts 17:24 is the Greek word “poieo” and in part it means to bring forth, to perform, to work. We also know that the law of Moses, otherwise known as the Old Testament laws of thou shalls and thou shall nots is work. It is expressed to us that it is a law of works in Romans 3:27. Further, Hebrews chapter four indicates that if we are still “working the works” of the law then we are not in faith. And that is what the Lord showed me- that if a person is keeping the law in order to gain righteousness or more correctly in order to have the Lord come dwell inside them, then they have missed it because the Lord does not dwell in temples made with hands!!! Any work we do to gain righteous status actually drives God from us instead of drawing Him toward us, because dead works are functions of the “hands”.
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