2021.07.27

 Psalm 84: 1-2, 10a

How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.
For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.

In old studies of the tabernacle in the wilderness and the temple--courts--in Jerusalem, my thoughts had centered on "the Lord's dwelling place with His people". But also--with Solomon and Paul--rebelled against that thought:

1 Kings 8: 27

But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!

Acts 7: 24

The God who made the world and everything in it.....does not live in temples made by man.........

Today (with thanks to RSB note) seeing the Lord's tent/tabernacle/temple/courts as the place--out of His created universe, all that is His because He made it--in which He chose to reveal His presence to the people. 

 

2021.07.19

From Psalm 81, with thanks to Timothy Keller

If we will rejoice in God

Psalm 81: 1 Sing aloud to God our strength; shout for joy to the God of Jacob!

and obey Him--fulfill our designed nature--

Psalm 81: 8 Hear, O my people, while I admonish you! O Israel, if you would but listen to me!

Psalm 81: 13 Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!

the Lord's rich promises are for us

Psalm 81: 16 (the Lord God) would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.

Derek Kidner: "He gives the best, and brings sweetness out of what is harsh, forbidding and wholly unpromising."

Judges 14: 14 Out of the eater came something to eat. Out of the strong came something sweet.

2 Corinthians 12: 10 For when I am weak, then I am strong.

How gracious God has been to me--through many years, many situations--to see His care for His weak, frail child, to see His sweetness through hard times.