Put Away Childish Things

As I was talking with my children about today's bible reading in 2 Chronicles where young king Josiah began destroying the pagan worship places and rebuilding the Father's true temple, we discussed how it seems like the 'good' kings always followed a pattern,
- destroy pagan places up to and including killing the pagan priests
- rebuild the walls and fortify the cities
- set in place officials who can start a collection so that the true temple can be rebuilt/refurbished/beautified

We discussed how this can apply to us spiritually.

- take away the things that are making us pursue idols
- put boundaries in place so that we can keep our 'city' protected from ungodly influences

and then I asked what they thought it could mean spiritually to beautify the temple? My oldest son soon said put 'good stuff there'. I asked what could that look like? My next to oldest son said, 'put away childish things'. I was blessed by both answers, particularly this one.

I began to formulate thoughts along the line of how childish things are reflected in what we see in babies/small children - bratty, gotta have their way, won't give up rights, want to do what they want to do when they want to do it how they want to do it. But we should begin to put away those type of childish responses, die to that fleshly nature and 'grow up' by putting on humility, love, giving, etc. These things 'beautify' the Father's temple and allow us to be a sweet smelling fragrance to Him in the same manner that the incense in the Holy Place wafted up as a beautiful aroma (even though these are actually in type also the prayers of the believers)

Death in the wilderness

It will require a death in the wilderness before we are fit to cross the Jordan into our promised land. The fearful us, the 'I wanna be in Egypt' us, the 'give me, give me, give me' us, the 'Hey, I'm somebody and you better recognize it' us.