This is what the Lord says:

‘Heaven is my throne,
    and the earth is my footstool.
Where is the house you will build for me?
    Where will my resting-place be?
2 Has not my hand made all these things,
    and so they came into being?’
declares the Lord.

‘These are the ones I look on with favour:
    those who are humble and contrite in spirit,
    and who tremble at my word.

In a sermon on Isaiah 66, the eminent Bible teacher, David Pawson, said words to this effect, ‘It’s not your building that will guarantee you the presence of God, but the kind of people you get in the building. It will have to do with their hearts and attitudes. You can spend huge amounts of time and money on a shiny new building, and it will not guarantee you God’s blessing. This was so under the Old Covenant, with regard to the temple. It remains the case today.

What is God looking for?

Jesus spelled it out in His conversation with the Samaritan woman, and it chimes with Isaiah 66:2:

 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” (John 4:23,24).

What God is looking for turns out to be who God is looking for:

“But there is something I’m looking for:
    a person simple and plain,
    reverently responsive to what I say…” (The Message).

PRAYER: Oh Lord, may I be that person.