Christianity's Holiest Site

Christianity’s Holiest Site

3/4/18

I wonder what comes to a person’s mind when they see a statement that is identical or very similar to the title of this article.  I know what my mind thinks about but this question must be asked for I know many will have varying degrees of answers.  I understand all of the potential answers but I know that God probably has a different answer than most of us do.  It presents a process of which we need to examine ourselves and see exactly where our motivation and focus is located, for if we truly do not understand or recognize Christianity’s greatest and holiest site our eternal engraving might need to be changed.  God wants His children to know and especially those that do not know Him at all, that Christianity’s holiest site is not a relic from some old church but a perfectly designed temple that each one of us carries within ourselves.

I have to admit that for a long period of time in my life I would have probably found no reason to differ with many of the answers that you are thinking or speaking right at this moment, but about two decades ago God got a hold of my life while I was in Africa at a conference and He changed my life when He revealed to me about His Kingdom and how it was to operate in my life; since I was His Kingdom.  From that moment onwards, the road I chose was a rocky one for I really did not understand the meaning of what God’s revelation to me meant and for quite a while I struggled with such knowledge and I must admit for a short period of time I did not want anything to do with what God was showing me.  I ran pretty hard and tried my best to keep the truth from infiltrating my life and every second that I did this action my life was miserable.  Eventually, I stopped fighting and doing my own thing, and sat down and finally listened to God and He immediately revealed what the highest, holiest and most desired site was to Him. 

It is easy to try and place the word “site” into the context of a noun which legitimizes the word as a physical place or thing that the eyes and mind can recognize without difficulty.  But when it is applied to an active verb or abstract noun it can become a tinge more difficult to define especially when one is so used to placing it on the outward physical appearances.  I do not argue the fact that physical places represent a major indication that Christ was alive and probably at least walked in the path of some relics and places that we deem as holy sites today, but I do not agree with the fact that many places these relics and sites on pedestals and claim them to be the holiest sites in Christianity.  While I understand their importance I cannot condone this type of statute because they can become idols in the eyes of mankind and for some they already have.

I ran across this video the other day that projects Christian priests and bishops protesting the State of Israel and other local agencies concerning a few tax-related issues.  The protests included shutting down the doors and closing off the areas to these cherished sites that many deem to be the holiest to Christians and Christianity.  The news bleep contained a few visitors from around the world that were upset because they were not allowed to go inside and see for themselves these places deemed important.  As a person who has traveled to many other religious spots of interest, I understand that disappointment in not being able to see what was intended can be concerning but it should not be or represent a devastating loss.  It is not this place or any other place that God deems as the holiest site and while “good” money might be spent on arriving for such a site, our eyes and sight should not be focused on the places but on the true holy site that God wants and desires from our lives.  I do not doubt these priests’ sincerity on the issue but it comes across that their focus is on the building and the status of that building comes first before the importance of salvation and the mission of the Church to preach the Gospel of Christ.

As I stated above, I could have looked at these places and deemed them of great importance but once again I must take myself and you the reader back to a sermon that my father preached in the early 1980s.  He had just returned from a trip to the Holy Land that included Israel, Jordan, and Egypt along with a few other stops on the way.  I remember vividly one of the pictures that he took was of the tomb where Jesus was supposed to have been buried.  My dad said that the group was instructed that while many people believe that this tomb was the exact site where Jesus was buried others did not and that His burial occurred at another place.  What my dad stated next confirms my belief and what the Word of God states concerning the holiest site in Christianity.  He said that it did not matter which site people believed that Jesus was buried in, for both sites were empty.  Jesus did not come to die and be buried but He came to rise from the dead so that He and His blood can be represented as the covering for all men’s hearts.

Probably the most recited and well-recognized verse in the Bible is John 3:16 and it is this verse that contains the answer to what is the most treasured and holiest site in Christianity.  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  It is this verse that confirms that the holiest site to Christians, Christianity, and more importantly to God is the human heart for it is the only thing possible that can make the choice to choose God or not.  God does not care for the physical items that this world has to offer, He only cares about having each and every one of His children next to Him and in His presence close to Him for eternity.  The heart is one noun that controls a person’s eternal destiny and it is this item of importance that God desires most for us to give Him.  It is okay that we visit these sites and marvel at what occurred in them, at them, or near them but it is the heart that we voluntarily give to God that counts the most.  I find where people give homage to sites that are decorated for God, I understand this but God does not want your heart to be focused on such earthly wonders, but the wonder of His Life that He gave for you.

Another portion of God’s Word that gives us details about how important it is to recognize that the heart is the most prized offering to God occurs in the book of Exodus when the children of Israel are in the desert.  When you look at the geography of the desert in which the Israelites walked through it is not that large in area.  Yes, it is a wide array of land that poses many challenges, but it really should not have taken forty years for the people to cross, so it means that there was another reason for this long-lasting journey.  The reason was that their hearts had become focused on the physical things that they had in life and how they needed to drop those things and give their hearts back to God, you know, the art of sacrifice in motion.

The children of Israel refused to do this and really did not understand that they needed to either.  It is obvious that this was the case for after a while they decided to build a golden calf and dance to its presence instead of waiting for God to reveal His laws to them.  The children of Israel had placed their focus on something manmade and that they could physically see instead of trusting what God was trying to show them through the spiritual communication lines of the heart.  It is the same dangers we face today when we place more emphasis on the physical world and its artifacts as it was when the children of Israel thought about and then made the golden calf.  It is the heart that is at stake and God really does not care about anything else on an eternal level.  God has never closed off the access to His heart yet we have done a fabulous job in completing such an act, ironically many times in the name of God.

When we place our focuses on things other than our hearts, our concept of life automatically dulls.  When the emphasis of life is placed on other objects around us we cannot help but feel left out or separated from relationships.  It is at this stage where we need to understand that it is the human heart that is the most important object not only in Christianity but life itself and that we cannot understand or know life without God being first in everything breath we take.  When life is doled off as second sister it becomes unstable and unreliable due to the confines that have been voluntarily chosen.  The world has perfected such atrocities for humanity and daily acquires new territory for its demeaning outposts.  I believe it is time we go back and reread the last sentence of the previous paragraph and then reread it again until we figure out what exactly is the most important site to God.

When the focus of what is true versus what is an outside source becomes an issue there is a problem within one’s system.  When that choice of outside influences becomes greater than the true heart a masking has occurred and the truth is no longer relevant, which means that one can no longer adjust to keep the truth intact but is forced to accept what the outside realm warrants.  If one takes a hard look at the children of Israel and their story while walking around in the desert you will find that this condition within their lives rang true.  Also, it is easy to find such an acknowledgment in today’s societies and behavior as well, a striking degradation of the truth and life itself and when publicly displayed sets the course of devastation just right around the corner.  This type of belief destroyed the very demeanor and hopes of the children of Israel and it is in its final stages of devastation in the present world today.  How far has this belief come?  Let us take a look at the spiritual conditions of both examples and see if they fall in line with what God deems as the holiest site in Christianity.

The children of Israel were waiting for Moses to return from the mountaintop where he had gone up some time ago.  Given human nature, the initial waiting game must have been an easy process for the hopes of a quick return had to be a constant theme but as time passed and no word from God or from Moses the ears became itchy and the hearts became restless.  By the time Moses returned the people had already succumbed to the physical aspects of their surroundings and threw God from their trusting position into second place.  The same has occurred in today’s societies as well, for the initial waiting period on God to show up and to keep in touch with His people was present but as time has passed the same type of presence has been felt by the general population.  In both groups, it has been forgotten as to why God revealed Himself in the manner that He did, and even though both groups are children of God He must have the hearts of the people understand their spiritual condition instead of just relying on the physical excitement.

In both examples, the people got their eyes on the physical and ignored the warnings that God was trying to give them before He had to step in and take matters into His own hands.  The deepening and hardening of the Israelites’ hearts was bad enough to allow them to wander in the desert for forty years so how bad will it have to be for our lives when God says it is time for us to have our hearts cleaned?  The Church has fallen into the same act as well, accepting the ways of the world and telling the people that it is okay to accept the practices of the world, that God will look past at the sins of the people because He loves them, and that His Word is interpretable and not authoritative in nature.  You know that these thoughts were present at the time of the Israelites, look at their activities and it is evident, so why are we any different?  We are not and if we do not turn our lives and hearts back to God and once again understand that this world cannot hold a light, any light, to the light that God has for our hearts.

That golden calf meant nothing but an idol to the people for temporary “relief” during hard times, and the ways of the modern societies serve up the exact same lie to countless of people today as well.  The topic and title of this article may seem like a gross representation of what is being taught here but God wants us to understand that times are about to change and it is extremely vital that we know, understand, and function with the truth about what is the holiest site of Christianity.  By the actions of the children of Israel during the Book of Exodus, through the actions of the majority of the people in the Early Church, and through the actions of many in the Modern Church, we have not understood what the holiest site is and just how important it is to God.  God wants our hearts more than anything else and until we figure out that our hearts are the most important thing to God our commitment to God will always be in question and subject to the tricks of Satan. 

One final example we have concerning this topic comes from all four of the Gospels when they talk about how Mary went to the tomb to be near Jesus but found that the stone had been rolled away.  An angel that was sitting on the top of the tomb was astonished that Mary was there and even asked her why she was looking for Jesus when it was a place for the dead.  Mary had her eyes fixed on the tomb and for whatever reason did not focus her heart on the real reason Jesus came to this earth, just as many of us do today when we place objects or places as the higher priority constituents.  God and Jesus did not fulfill the eternal Father’s Word for us to remember a rock or a building for those items will pass away but they wanted us to understand that the one most important item that they want is for our hearts to choose Life which means to choose God.

Church, God is calling us to wake up and to listen to His voice on this matter before it is too late.  For when the known institution is taken away how will we be able to function as we are created to do?  The exodus out of Egypt was not an easy process as the children of Israel thought it would be, nor will any correction method that God will perform in today’s societies and especially ours either.  If we cannot understand this truth while the getting is good, how will things be when the modernity standards of societies are not available?  We can avoid this if we only allow God to infiltrate our lives and hearts again and it starts you us Church, it starts with us.  No more golden calves in our lives and no more long endless journeys with darkness in our hearts.  Let us forget neon lies of the world and choose the consistency of Jesus and when we do choose Truth there will be no question about what we consider to be the holiest site in Christianity.  Lastly, through this choice and full commitment, our lives and land shall drastically improve as God has promised.

DLB