Being marked by God

1 Kings 8:22-43

The people were looking to the temple in Jerusalem, but today we are the temple. We have God living in us.

A ring has a hallmark. We can know the quality of the gold by it’s hallmark. Gold has impurities in it. It has to be heated and the dross has to be removed. Once the dross has been removed it has to be tested for purity and a hallmark is issued. The dross in our lives has been removed and we have been made righteous.

There was a time when God banished mankind from His presence. God is holy and could have nothing to do with sinful mankind. We can now come into the covenant promises of God because He has cleansed us from all our sin.

The flaming sword was placed at the entrance to Eden to prevent anyone trying to get back into the presence of God. God told Moses how to build the tabancle so that He could dwell amongst His people as they travelled through the wilderness. God told David and Solomon how to build the temple as a permanent dwelling amongst His people. God now promises to dwell within us. God wants to put the mark of His presence upon us.

The world is burning and needs us to take the presence of God out into the world. People are dying without God. We are commanded to preach the good news and bring people to God.

God needs to mark our lives and we need to respond to the mark of God on our lives.

1. Have you got the mark of God that only the presence of God can give? – An encounter with God will change everything we do (Exodus 33:15-16). Is God’s presence your priority? The early Church was marked by the fire of God (Acts 2:1-4).
2. The ground upon which we stand is holy ground – The presence of God gets deep inside our spirit. Exodus 3:5 – Moses entered the presence of God. God told him to take his shoes off and stop running away from Him. Have you had an encounter with God that you can never forget, an encounter that has changed your life forever? Moses carried the dust on his shoes of the failure of his past. God told him to take of his shoes and He set Moses free from his past failures. It’s time for us to stand on holy ground before the presence of God and allow Him to bring us out from the place where the Devil has any hold on our lives. God wants to shift the ground under our feet and place our feet on holy ground. God wants to deal with the fears and failures of our past.