Fri.-Sabbath, 12/23-25/16 Devotion

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Wahoo—Sunday is almost here! We get to go back to church again!! In order to help us get ready, here is Thomas Watson, from his, "The Spiritual Watch" treatise. . . .

"Keep your heart as you would keep a temple. The temple was a hallowed place, set apart for God's worship. Just so, the heart is the temple of God (1 Cor. 3:16). This heart-temple must be kept pure and holy—no filth may lie here; sweep the dust out of the temple. The vessels of the temple were cleansed (2 Chron. 29:15). Thus the memory, affections, and conscience, these temple vessels, must be cleansed (2 Cor. 7:1). Christ whipped the buy-ers and sellers out of the temple in John 2. The cares of the world will be crowding into the heart. Now you must get a whip made of the threatenings of the law, and drive these money-changers out of the temple of your heart. Do not let God's temple be turned into a worldly market.

"The temple had a fire burning on the altar; take heed of strange fire. But keep the fire of zeal and devotion flaming upon the altar of your heart; do temple work and offer up the sacrifice of a broken heart. When the heart is a consecrated place, a holy of holies, then God will walk there. Many a man's heart is a pest-house, a bedlam, being polluted with sin. This is to put swine into God's temple! This is to let the devil come into God's temple! David's heart was a dedicated temple (Ps. 119:38)."