Daily Devotion

June 29, 2006

Psalms 84:1-2 How amiable are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts!  (2)  My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.

The desert camp of the Children of Israel--hundreds of thousands of them-- formed a square around the tabernacle of the Lord. The tabernacle was comprised of three distinct courts divided by thick curtains held with four tons of silver sockets.  The Levites, its dedicated priests, camp nearest to it, to care for it day and night. It contains no image, no statue, no identification of any sort; only a name, Yehovah, meaning the Self-Existent Being, the “I am that I am” (Gen 3:14). From these three courts came forth laws that define our moral code even today. From this tent were taught the earmarks of the coming Messiah, the Redeemer of humanity.  

David was a military man.  He led God’s people into war.  David called God the “LORD of hosts”, or the LORD of the armies.  He knew that ultimately God was in charge of His army, that he was just an instrument.  While on military campaigns David must have spent time praying, singing to the LORD, claiming, demanding, pleading for victory over his unrighteous enemies.  The Ark, the figure of the redemptive promises of God, the spiritual home of every man’s soul, rested in its own place in Gibeah or Jerusalem.  As the soldier on the distant battlefield longs for the comforts of home, for the sweetness of wife and family, David longed for the “courts of the Lord”. Today, God’s people are an army on the move, away from ‘home’. We long for the Tabernacle of God, the “New Jerusalem” (Rev 21:2-3).  We long for the restoration of all things when the world will finally know peace, love and the true justice of the LORD.  

On Calvary, Jesus-Christ took away the “veil” ( 2 Cor 3:16); He broke the barriers of physical representations and put in our hearts the earnest of the Promises to come (2 Cor 1:22): He came to our heart and made His home there so He can be with us wherever we are.

Do you long for the Spirit of God?  Do you yearn for peace?  Does you spirit groan in waiting for ‘home’?  Do this now: close your eyes, call upon Him from Whom peace and beauty comes, fellowship with Him within the curtain of the Holy of Holies.  In the closet of your heart, let the flow of His Words in the silence of your soul enrapture you into the hope and Spirit of redemption, for there is the Ark, the Temple, the Shekinah glory, the House of God!

1Co 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?

Patrick Lumbroso
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