A dwelling place for God

We see in the very beginning that our God wanted specifically to have fellowship with man, His highest order of creation. You could go so far as to say that God created man so that He could have fellowship with him.

The Book of Genesis is the Book of Beginnings, the seed plot of the whole Bible. In other words if something is presented as a principle in Genesis, it’s a principle that God intends to keep throughout the whole book. It’s called the Law of First Mention.

So from the beginning of time until this day, our main purpose as God’s people is to have a close, intimate, personal, on-going relationship with God. I’m talking about a relationship with the tangible presence of God, not just the “idea” of God.

Yet, for the most part, that has not been the primary focus of the Church today. We have been so committed to serving the God of our salvation we forgot about walking in the cool of the day with Him. That’s equivalent to the Old Testament priests who spent all of their time in the Holy Place right next to the Holy of Holies (the raw presence of God). They lost focus of their whole purpose of being priests, which was to dwell in the presence of God.

If we satisfy ourselves with just serving God instead of dwelling with Him, we will miss the whole purpose of our existence.

It’s not that serving God is wrong. It’s just not the end result. It is just one of the steps along the way in our journey as Christians. Ultimately our direction and purpose is to become a dwelling place for God’s tangible presence. It’s in His presence that everything we hope for, everything we need, and  everything we desire is fully met.

It’s in the Holy of Holies or the tangible presence of God that He equips us to overcome Satan and all his evil forces of darkness and bring the kingdom of God to bear in our lives and the places that He appoints us to.

Let’s look at the tabernacle once again, since we are the New Testament tabernacle of God today. When the priests went into the Old Testament tabernacle, they first entered the outer courts. It was there that the animals were sacrificed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Today, this is the place where we deny our flesh and praise God and give Him thanks. It’s a beginning and not an end. It is a starting point—not a destination.

Yet so many Christians never get beyond developing a life of praise. It’s good but not the finish line. The whole purpose of the tabernacle was to continue on past the outer courts, then into the holy place, and ultimately into the Holy of Holies—the tangible presence of God. God is longing for us to dwell in His presence and to build Him a place that he would be comfortable to dwell in, not just visit. If you build it, He will come.

Who today will go back to the first principles that God laid out in the Book of Genesis and make His presence the focus of his or her life? Who will build a resting place for the Lord God Almighty? Let our answer today be a resounding “I  will, Lord!”