The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. (Acts 17:24-25)
Those are words Paul said to the men in Athens. Our God doesn’t live in temples made by man. Neither Churches, Cathedrals, monasteries nor convents are His dwelling place. He lives in temples made of flesh, that is, the pinnacle of His creation – men. Only God can make man. That is His sole privilege. It is pure vanity to imagine that man can create a house from brick and wood that contains the Creator of the Universe. He has found a dwelling place in what only He can create.
In the same manner it is pure vanity to imagine that we can serve God. He is the one who has made Himself servant to all mankind and gives us everything. I assume when Paul uses the word “everything” he means what he says – everything, that is, nothing exempted. “God only requires Himself”, Jessie Penn Lewis once wrote. The gifts of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit, our worship, our self-for-others-love are all Him manifesting Himself in our form.
In the new dispensation as new creations in Christ He has made us participants in His life. We live His quality of life, we breathe and exhale His life and we are made everything in Him. To live by laws and ordinances are an artificial kind of life. The cry that we must serve God is void and without substance. He, the sustainer of life, doesn’t need anything. Penn Lewis further wrote: “What God wants out of us He will first put in.” What He puts in naturally flows out again – rivers of living waters. This is the higher law of love which comes to expression without boundaries as we cease from our own works and realize that without Christ we can do nothing.
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