WHO LIVES IN MY MOBILE HOME?

"Living out of my car" is a concept that has been around for a long time. I can remember, and it wasn't so long ago, having to clean my car out from previous meals, gym clothes, general trash, unused music CD's, and my work paraphernalia. I vacuumed it out, wiped it down, made it smell real good and even washed it on the outside too. However, it wasn't long before the cycle struck again.

There was a time when mobile homes were pitched by salesmen to be a home you can move to anywhere you want to live. I have seen a few, but not many mobile homes being transported to their destination over the years. There are a handful of us that travel and live like this now, but the vehicle is called an RV (recreational vehicle).

The theme of lives in motion is not new. This kind of life dates back to early human life which was nomadic. However, there was a mobile life which came on the scene of humanity that heavily influenced a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a Holy nation - a type of nomadic lifestyle led by God.  

Although God had conditions that had to be met by the Hebrew people for counsel with His Presence (Exodus 25:8-9 and Exodus 26; Exodus 40), the message is that God desired to commune or tabernacle with His people and He did that through the display of His presence wherever they went.

• "In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out—until the day it lifted. So the cloud of the Lord was over the tabernacle by day, and fire was in the cloud by night, in the sight of all the Israelites during all their travels." (Exodus 40:36-38)

As time passed, the display of God's presence within the community of His people faded. It did not help that God's people kept entering into a cycle of rebellion - repentance - restoration - rebellion again. They asked for kings to rule over them like other nations around them and God granted their request. However, one of their kings had it on his heart to bring God's presence back into the picture. King David had it on his mind to build a Temple for God in Jerusalem. But, because David was a man who shed so much blood, a man of war, the responsibility for construction of The Temple fell to his son - Solomon.

The difference with this temple is that now the presence of God is "stationary". Yes, God is everywhere (ommi-present). He made all things, is in all things and holds all things together. However, the manifest, counseling presence of God in those days was no longer nomadic, His presence was found in a magnificent Temple.

Fast-forward a few years (sarcasm included) and we arrive at the point where Christ is setting the imagery for our bodies as the Temple of God - 

• Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body. (John 2:19-21) 

Paul, in his first letter to the believers in Corinth, stressed the importance of viewing your body as the home of God. 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 says,

• Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.

And three chapters later, Paul re-enforces this point when he states in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 -

• Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

When you choose Christ as your personal Savior and Master over your life, His presence becomes alive in you. The God part in everybody, that God courts or woos throughout everyone's life, is activated upon faith in His Son Jesus. With the baptism of the Holy Spirit in one's life, the Christian becomes more empowered to operate in God's will. 

John the Baptist is speaking of Jesus and says, 

• “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." (Matthew 3:11) 

And sure enough, He did - 

• "Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them." (Acts 2:2-4)  

Suddenly, all believers in Christ are Traveling Temples of powerful effect. Like vehicles with features different from each other, but with the same kind of fuel that runs it - so it is with the believer in Christ that all bodies and their gifts are not alike, but the Spirit that controls them is the same (1 Corinthians 12:4-5).

So, we live out of our cars, but as Christians do we live out of our Traveling Temples? Mobile homes and RVs have many features that are utilized every day by their users without a second thought. Are we as Christians consciously utilizing our gifts and talents that have been given with our "new body"? Returning to Moses' relationship with God - Moses cried out a plea to God that I believe all believers in Christ should echo today and throughout eternity -

• “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?” (Exodus 33:15-16)

Your car is mobile. Your RV is mobile. And according to Scripture your body is the temple and home of God, mobile, powerful  and effective for His kingdom purposes. I encourage you to clean your vehicle/body out, check the features/gifts you possess and answer honestly - Who Lives In My Mobile Home?