Quotable Quotes

June 5

Whenever two or three of you come together in My name, I am there with you (Matthew 18:20 CEV).

We must be completely clear as to what it is that God is particularly concerned with at this time in the world's history, and, therefore, what it is that we who are the Lord's children are called unto. The thing that God is doing in this dispensation is the formation of a spiritual and heavenly Israel. In doing that He is repeating the laws of the old Israel in a spiritual way. He is following along the lines of His ways with the old Israel, but now on a heavenly and not an earthly basis, because, while God's methods may change, His principles are changeless. He has left the earthly basis of the Old Testament and has moved on to a heavenly basis in the New Testament. He has moved from the temporal to the spiritual, and the spiritual is far greater than the temporal...

And that leads us to that wonderful revelation which we have in the New Testament - the revelation of Christ and all His members being made one Temple for God. Christ is our Temple, and in Him we find all that a temple was ever intended to be. Oh, how people have gone astray over this! We go to many places that are called "churches" and the word is applied to the building. When people pray in those places they usually say something like this: "We have come into Thy house today. We are in this house of God." They are really talking about a building. But we don't need a building to give God a temple! "Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20). People gathered into Jesus Christ constitute the Temple of God. It is not a special building, but people who are in Christ Jesus. This is what God is doing in this dispensation.

By T. Austin-Sparks from: The On-High Calling - Chapter 1 

This painting by Veronica Benning is called Bird of Paradise.