God is always with me…

The past two weeks have been filled with the certainty of God’s presence along with many emotional experiences. I’m learning to abide in the former rather than let the emotions take me away from the reality of Jesus being with me. He is my source and my song, my stability in both storms and smooth sailing.

Today’s reading is filled with Scripture that describes the blessing of this life of union with Him. While I know the Lord is everywhere, the sense of His presence is precious in the ups and downs, particularly when both are extreme. In the OT, Solomon wrote as he dedicated the temple:

But will God indeed dwell with man on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house that I have built! (2 Chronicles 6:18)

People have called church buildings the house of the Lord, as if this was the only place to be with God. That sense is heightened when dozens of people who have it are together, but it need not go away when I walk out the door and into the rest of the world. As Solomon’s prayer continued and the Lord answered, it reminds me of what the NT says:

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)

What Solomon constructed was noted for its grandeur, yet now the people of God are described as being the dwelling place of God. The words He spoke to this ancient king are repeated to me and when I read them, I feel as Solomon must have felt. God said to this man:

I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. (2 Chronicles 7:12–16)

These days have been days of prayer, not merely for the normal needs of life, but for dramatic changes of weather, for behavior changes in people, for extraordinary love shown to openly sinful people, for God to fill me so I could be like Jesus for those who need Him. And God says this to me:

In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. (John 14:20)

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. (John 15:7)

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. (1 John 4:13)

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. (1 John 4:16)

He reminds me often that He is with me and that I will know it. What a blessing.

PRAY: Today is a day of rest, ordained by You that I might let You help my soul catch up with my body, settle the emotions, restore alignment with You, remembering that I am a temple for the Holy Spirit  and a place where You live forever. May it be special, not for my sake, but that You will be worshiped and glorified.