A City of our God

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
Psalm 46:4
I have recently been impressed upon by the Lord to look into my life introspectively. Those who have ever had introspective moments understand that this can be an unsettling time in ones life. Jesus said in Mark 11:17 that "My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves."
i looked at that verse and realized a profound spiritual truth in my life, that i am the that house of prayer. i am to be the dwelling place of the most high. Brennen Manning said that the hour we spend before the Lord is not prayer, it is preperation for the other 23 hours we do spend in prayer. my life is to be constant upward flow, living forever before the throne of grace in unbridled passion and dialogue. Isaiah says that we are watchemen on the wall before the Lord day and night. the other thing that struck me about Christ's words was that i am to be a house of prayer for all nations. jesus has called us to live that lifestyle of prayer before the nations of the world. i am called to live the presence of God in the vein of unnceasing prayer to the world around me. Jesus called us to live before the nations; the social ramifications of that is living before the socially outcast. when Jesus said that to the people of Isreal, the phrase the nations meant something terrible. why would God have us to live before the "unclean"? the same is today. how many times do i walk past someone who needs the flow of God that i am carrying?
so all that leads me to the introspection, if i am to be the very tabernacle of God, the very vessel for His presence, how dirty am i? are there spiritual idols in my temple, things that i have set up that do not resemble the living God? i began to see that my tabernacle was not where it would have to be to be a pure filter for this presence that i am carrying. i needed to do the very thing that i am, pray. i needed to ask God to cleanse my streams and make me glad. i need to trade the pride of my life, the self-centerdness of my life to become the praying/activist that God has called all of Christendom to be. a weeping warrior, a tender fighter, a praying man who fights for justice for the oppressed both spiritually and physically. it is hard thing to clean the stream of ones life that has become muddied by the dung of religion and the world. Prayer, mission and justice.
joshua
"the world as we know it isnt worth living, but the call is worth dying for"