By the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

Christ Himself is the builder of His spiritual temple, and He is building it on the mountains of His unchangeable love, His omnipotent grace, and His infallible truth. But as was the case with Solomon’s temple, the materials must be made ready. The Lord has His spiritual “cedars of Lebanon” (Ps. 29:5), but they need to be prepared for construction, for they have not been cut down, shaped, and sawn into beautiful planks whose fragrant beauty will bring joy to His heavenly temple. He also has His rough stones for His building, but they must be quarried, squared, and chiseled into shape.

All this is Christ’s work, for each individual believer is being prepared, polished, and made ready for his place in the heavenly temple by the prep-work of the Lord’s own hand. Even our afflictions and difficulties will not do their work of sanctification without being used by Him for that purpose, nor will our prayers and good works make us ready for heaven apart from the work of His hand, which fashions our hearts into His godly design.

As in the building of Solomon’s temple, “Only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built” (1 Kings 6:7). Everything was perfected elsewhere and brought to the exact spot they were to occupy. In the same way, Jesus is perfecting His building materials here on earth. Once we reach heaven, there will be no more sanctifying us ​— no chiseling us with afflictions and no sawing us with suffering. No, we must be made ready here, for Christ will do His work beforehand. And once He has finished, we will be ferried across the stream of death by His loving hand and taken directly to the heavenly Jerusalem where we will stand as eternal pillars in the temple of our Lord.

Beneath His eye and care,

The edifice shall rise,

Majestic, strong, and fair,

And shine above the skies.

Philip Doddridge, 1702 – 1751

By the pen of Jim Reimann:

Many of us spend a great deal of time fighting the effects of aging on our bodies. We also devote vast amounts of money and effort to diet and exercise, to coloring our hair, or even to cosmetic surgery in attempts to maintain some vestige of our former youthfulness. Yet in spite of all our efforts, we are fighting a losing battle. And praise the Lord we are!

Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. . . . For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened . . . to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

2 Cor. 5:1, 4 – 5

Lord, although “I . . . would prefer to be away from the body and at home with [You]” (2 Cor. 5:8), I commit the temple of my body today to Your work.