Since becoming a Christian, this alone time is associated more and more as being in God’s presence. I love the song, “You are my hiding place” and when alone with Him, He boosts my stresses or fatigue.
Today’s word is SHELTER. The major OT word literally means “shadow, shade,” but it can also be used figuratively, such as interposing something between an object and a light source, with the associative meanings of protection and refreshment. This word is in Psalm 27:5, “For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock.”
Another Hebrew word means a place where a person dwells more than temporarily, including supernatural locations. This word is used for where God hides His people, both in the tabernacle and in His presence.
Psalm 31:20. In the cover of your presence you hide them from the plots of men; you store them in your shelter from the strife of tongues.
Another OT word speaks of a hiding place, a refuge or shelter to escape danger or hardship such as what the psalmist asked for in Psalm 55:5–8.
“Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me. And I say, ‘Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest; yes, I would wander far away; I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah I would hurry to find a shelter from the raging wind and tempest.’ ”
Other words means much the same thing as my childhood alcove — a place to be private and protected. These show up in the Psalms:
Psalm 61:4. “Let me dwell in your tent forever! Let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings! Selah”
Psalm 91:1–2. “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’ ”
In the NT, the idea is almost the same yet the meaning is more like settling in, or pitching a tent, to take up residence or dwell in, sometimes forever and sometimes temporarily. It is to occupy a place as God did in the Tabernacle, a symbol of protection and communion. In each context, the words translated shelter deal with spiritual not human existence and residence. In other words, they express the most significant ways in which spiritual and human existence can be combined when used to describe the Incarnation of Jesus Christ . . .
John 1:14. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
In the OT, God’s people sheltered themselves in God but in the NT, God comes to dwell with and in His people. The phrases most often used is that we are “in Christ” and He “lives in us” and is our life.
Galatians 2:20. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
All that He is became mine and eventually all that I am will be like Him. By GAZING INTO HIS GLORY, I am changed. God uses all things that happen to me to that end of transforming me into the likeness of His Son. This is logical; if Christ lived in my house, it would change things — and because He pitched me as His tent, my life cannot help but change (see 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, 5:1-5 and 6:9 for how this body is a tent and His dwelling place).
In the end, God takes me into His shelter, which is His presence. Revelation 7:15 and 21:3 explain this glorious inheritance and my final dwelling place:
“Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence . . . . And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”
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