Where God Put His Name

Written by Peyton George

We started today at Ancient Jerusalem, David’s City, where we learned about King David and how he started to build the city of Jerusalem, on a hill, tightly compacted, and surrounded by walls. We then heard about the story shared in 2 Chronicles 32:5-8 about Hezekiah’s faithfulness in God that he will protect ancient Jerusalem against Assyria. Apart of that was to redirect the city’s water source through underground tunnels, which we got to walk through! The intricacy of the tunneling blew our minds because, it was so strategically placed in 8th century B.C. The water tunnels led us from the top of ancient Jerusalem to the bottom, which was home to the pool of Siloam. Here we were taught that this pool was the place where Jesus sent the blind man to wash and he would be healed. From there we headed into ruins of King Herod’s retaining wall which surrounded the Temple Mount, the place where God put His name, his “address.” At this temple we learned about how Jesus changed everything. Before I dive too deep into that, the rest of our day complied by visiting the Western Wall, more commonly known as the Wailing Wall, where we got to press our hands on such a sacred place to many people. Our day finished up by doing some souvenir shopping, don’t worry parents some of you are being brought back some pretty cool stuff.

I said I would come back to how Jesus changed everything, and this is how. During the time of King Herod, the Temple Mount was the place where God himself dwelled and only the high priest may enter Holy of Holies to be in the presence of God. In Mark 15:35-37 is Jesus’s death and the veil that separated the Holy of Holies was torn. From his death, God’s presence was taken out of a physical place and was placed into us. The barrier between God and man was no more. God changed his address to our hearts. This hit home to me because we no longer have to come to a place to be as close as possible to God. You cannot be closer to someone than to literally have the Holy Spirit inside of you. There is so much power and peace to have God tattooed on my heart because He will not leave me, fail me, and leads me in His way, always. God’s presence is not just for me; it is for everyone. Later in the day, we read about the Pentecost, where people came to the temple to worship our God was filled with the presence of God. Because, the people who came to worship were from all over the world, God’s presence of what happened, spread. This was the birth place of Christianity. If those people did not tell the world what happened on the day of Pentecost, I would have not been able to stand in the area where God’s presence used to dwell with His presence now inside me! This gave me so much encouragement to go to continue telling the world of what Jesus did so that others can feel the overwhelming, unconditional love that Jesus has for every single person and that they can be filled with God’s presence.

Learn more about Campus Ministry at GVSU