God's Threshing Floor

Ladies,
I am so excited that many of you are commenting on the blog and keeping the dialogue going.

I want to comment myself on one of the posts about the obedience of lying face down in prayer. It was comparable to a threshing floor where wheat is separated from the chaff.

I found that interesting, and something that really concerns this particular study. Did you know that the Temple Mount was originally a threshing floor?

The account of the story is in I Chronicles 21-22. You know that King David had a desire to build a temple for the ark of the covenant, which at that time was still in a tent, even though David had it brought to Jerusalem. David had committed a great sin of pride of taking a census, and God became angry and punished Israel greatly. To stop the plague that God had sent, He ordered David to build an altar on the threshing floor of a man name Araunah and make an atoning sacrifice. David did so, and purchased the land.

I Chronicles 21:1 says, "Then David said, "The house of the LORD God is to be here, and also the altar of burnt offering for Israel". So on the site of the threshing floor, David son, Solomon built the temple.

This is also the site where, hundreds of years prior, Abraham and his son Isaac went to worship, and there God commanded him to offer Isaac as a burnt offering. Because of Abraham's total obedience, God provided a ram to use as the offering.

Millions and millions of pilgrims through out the years worshiped at that site. Millions and millions of lambs were offered as atoning sacrifices. It was a picture of the greatest thing to ever happen, not on that particular site, but on the same mountain range.

Jesus, our Passover Lamb, made the atoning sacrifice for you and me. Blood sacrifices are no longer needed, because of His shed blood. Temples are no longer needed because we are the Temples of His Holy Spirit.

However, Romans 12:1 says, "in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship." So, ladies, the sacrificial system still exists. We are the living sacrifices.

I am so glad to be reminded of the threshing floor. It really became real to me this morning. I realized that my carpet looks just like a threshing floor. That's a nice way of saying it is just plain nasty. It was time for me to get up and vacuum it. Same is true with my life. It is time to do some serious cleaning if I am to be holy and pleasing to the Lord. - jl