Chicken soup: It's in there!

     Today I listened to a good preacher, preaching on the cleansing of the temple.  Three times a year in Jewish Law the people would go up to Jerusalem and the temple and present themselves to God.  They of course would bring their sacrifice ( one without blemish) and the Priest would perform the rite of sacrifice and atonement for that particular individual or families sins for the year.  The temple had and inner court and an outer court. The outer court was reserved for  "gentiles"  or those outside Jewish law. It was there they could also offer sacrifice to God.  Of course Jesus being a Jew and following the law, he came upon the temple and was seized with a zealousness and rage because of the money changers and merchandise being sold in the house of God.  He cleansed his fathers house.  "My father's house is a house of prayer and you make it a den of theives and robbers!"  In other words sin was present in the house of God.
     The same goes for us today.  We are steeped in our sins from birth.  We cannot help it, or avoid it, it is what it is!
      We are like chicken soup everything, necks, gizzards, fat and grisle are in their.  Though it makes the soup taste good....we strain it out later for our benefit of not eating anything yucky!  
     So we when we are before our God he sees our true self our sins that are ever before him and he requires we also like the temple be cleansed before he will have anything to do with us.  We are his temple, the place he longs to dwell in now.  And he can, provided we do it his way!   Anything that is our way and not Christ is essentially against Christ or Anti- Christ.....Get that...?  Our way is not God's way.  So turning ourselves away from our way is  basically a repentance and a doorway for God to enter in and start a cleansing process that can last and should last for our entire lives.  The things that stick to us over the course of time that we have involved ourself with, drugs, alcohols, sex, and lieing and so many other "self" things can and do get God's attention. He wants us better and put together in a healthy lifestyle.
    So we do not have to be in the "Court of the Gentiles" forever out of the reach of God but can enter into his rest and receive of him his blessings and benefits of a good life, here and now.  Yum. Chicken soup! free from Yuck!