Still Pursuing

The Word keeps amazing me and fascinating me. I see something new like I'm seeing it for the first time so very often. If you love literature, then you can appreciate how you can thumb through the pages of the Bible and find whatever theme you're looking for: romance, war, redemption, drama, suspense, action, poetry, etc. Well today I was drawn into one of the many accounts of the greatest love story ever told.

The heading over Hosea, chapter 11, in my NIV Study Bible reads, "God's Love for Israel". The chapter starts out recounting how the Lord deeply loved, nurtured, and called out to Israel since the nation was young. But the people of Israel seem determined to run from Him. Although their actions deserved much punishment, the Lord responds with mercy in verse 8: "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel?...My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused." In Chapter 2, we see similar language: "Therefore I am going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her...In that day," declares the Lord, "you will call me 'my husband'; you will no longer call me 'my master.'"

This language speaks of a father, of a lover, who can't help but follow the longings of his heart. Even though His beloved has turned their back on Him time and again, the Lord STILL pursues; He is STILL ready for his people to turn and embrace Him.

That's the love that your Creator has for you. A love so crazy that He doesn't care how long you have run from him, or how hard you've run in the other direction; He is waiting with open arms and eyes of adoration. His heart longs for you.

When you consider all that we've done to put distance between ourselves and God it is incredible that He still wants us, and is so close. Just like the people of Israel we read about in Hosea, we have prostituted ourselves and forgotten where the goodness of life comes from. We have chosen to embrace things other than the One we have been sworn to. But His love looks past our infidelity; He sees us as who He made us to be, not as who we've made ourselves out to be.

Turn and see how close He still is. See the grace in His eyes and find your identity in the name He gives you. His love never fails, and there is nothing you can do to earn it--just let His mind-blowing love envelop you and forever change the cadence of your heartbeat. Amen.

When God Shows Up

“When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled his temple.” --1st Kings 8:10-11

This passage has been on my heart for over a week now. Let me give you just a little background info as to what is going on here.

King David had it purposed in his heart to build a temple for the Lord. This was a huge deal not only because of the magnitude of the project, but because there had never been a permanent place for the God of Israel prior to this point. From the time the Israelites left Egypt (“Let my people go!”; parting of the Red Sea; living on manna in the desert; etc.), they had been a nomadic people. The presence of God moved, and they moved with Him. Although He didn’t need a place to dwell, God told David that his desire would be fulfilled in order to plant the Israelite people (2nd Samuel, chapter 7).

The opening Scripture picks up the story when the temple has just been completed. King Solomon, David’s son, is now on the throne. All of the finest things have been used in constructing and decorating the temple, and everything is in order for the grand opening. All of the people of Israel have assembled for the massive dedication of the building, and there is much anticipation and celebration in the air.

As one of the last things to do, Solomon has the ark of the Lord’s covenant brought into the temple. This ark is where the manifest presence of God had dwelled among the Israelite people; it was movable—enabling the Israelites to take the Lord’s presence with them wherever they roamed. Thus, by bringing the ark into the temple, the dynamic of how the Lord rested among his people changed. A once nomadic people became a people with roots. Just as the Lord now dwelt in one place, so did His people.

So after the priests placed the ark in the inner sanctuary of the temple, they come out to where they could see the throngs of people. I'm betting they had prepared an elaborate service that may have contained songs, sacrifices, praise, prayers, worship, and loads of symbolic illustration. They may have had leaders from the different tribes and family heads all scheduled to do something in the service. But then, “…the cloud filled the temple of the Lord. And the priests could not perform their service because…the glory of the Lord filled his temple.” WOW!!!

Does that not hit you?! On such a huge day in the history of Israel, on such a magnificent occasion, all the plans of the priests got wrecked because God showed up. His glory manifested in such a thick way that they literally could not perform their service. I love it!

So I ask: How many times have we let structure and order get in the way of actually encountering the glory of the Living God? Have we resolutely clung to the predetermined lines of our “service” because it would be somewhat uncomfortable to depart from it? It seems to me that God showed up that day and was shouting, “Here I am! Behold me! I am ALL that you need!”

It makes me wonder what the goal of our worship is. Is it to usher in the presence of God? To ask Him to invade us and change us from the inside out? Or is it to fulfill other desires within us that want something familiar, something that makes us smile on the way out the door as we go to eat a big lunch? If it’s the latter, then we need to check ourselves. We need to reexamine our motives and change the way we live out our faith. If it’s the former, then we should yearn for the excessive outpouring of the Spirit. We should pray that 1 Kings 8:10-11 happens every single time we come together!

I am not saying we should discard all preparation and planning; there are multiple places in the Bible that speak on how the Church should have order. What I am saying is that we should not be so stuck to our outlines that we neglect to heed to what the Spirit of the Lord is doing around us. We should not sacrifice genuine encounter and the impulsive ebb and flow of the Holy Spirit on the altar of familiarity and structure.

Let us seek after the Lord. Let us not box Him in. I pray that the unfathomable things of God start to manifest among us as we yearn for fresh fire and revelation straight from Heaven. Amen.