Did you ever wonder what life WITHOUT God’s Presence would be like? I mean, really truly WITHOUT HIS PRESENCE? In my reading this week (Ezekiel) the exiles are coming home. They are moving back to their “homeland” and to top it off, God’s Presence has returned.
Wait – what do I mean by God’s Presence returning? Isn’t He everywhere? Where did He go if He wasn’t there with them? That’s a good question ! I have been thinking about that this week and the importance of “God’s Presence” in my life and in OUR lives as Christians.
In the Old Testament, God dwelt (on earth) in the tabernacle first and then in His Most Holy Place in the temple that King Solomon built for Him in Jerusalem. By “dwelling”, I mean He was there to worship and confess to. He spoke to (and through) prophets. He accepted sacrifices and worked in tremendous ways for His people. Jerusalem was captured and the Jews went into exile. He left them to their own devices. And you know what? They really didn’t care about it that much and for the most part, just lived for themselves.
God, IN HIS SOVEREIGNTY, however, knew He had to do this so they would “come back”. Unfortunately, I know EXACTLY why this happens. I, in my stubbornness, try to handle things my own way . . . I think life should be the way I want it to be and I don’t care about anything else (or any one) . . . I have lived where it didn’t matter if it was a sin or not, its what I wanted . . . NOT in God’s Presence.
Did you ever feel like you were in muck and you just kept slipping? Or that everything around you was so “dark” and you just couldn’t “fix” it? NOT a great place!
The beginning of Psalm 84 says:
How lovely is Your dwelling place, O LORD Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
And then at the end:
Better is one day in Your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
So one day WITH God is better than 1000 elsewhere? One day?
One day, living in SONshine instead of darkness
One day in TRUTH instead of lies
One day LOVED, FORGIVEN, ACCEPTED, ADOPTED and FREE!
I think that even though they “thought” they didn’t want God – they found out what life was without Him (tents of the wicked, so to speak). God spoke to the prophet Ezekiel and told him how to rebuild the temple, etc. so that His Presence would be among them again, the last verse being:
And the name of the city from that time on will be:
THE LORD IS THERE
Don’t you love that? Just simply, THE LORD IS THERE.
Sin confessed – forgiveness – repentance – the Lord is there!
YEP, that’s RIGHT where I want to be !
May our hearts see . . . . Your dwelling place is RIGHT where we wanna be!
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