“One thing have I desired of the Lord, that I will seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in His temple.”
We could have the mistaken idea that David’s one desire was to stay in church all of the time. Keep in mind that the tabernacle, and later the temple, was not a place where people gathered to worship like we do in our church buildings. They later had synagogues for that purpose, but in David’s time there were no synagogues. What, then, was the one thing that David desired of the Lord? David desired to stay close to the Lord. The tent that David set up as the tabernacle was where the Holy of Holies was. This was the part of the tabernacle that held the Ark of the Covenant where God was present among His people on the Mercy Seat. David simply meant that the one thing he desired was to stay close to the Lord. Each day of his life, David wanted to have fellowship with the Lord. When David, or other Jews, prayed they prayed toward the place where the Holy of Holies was. Shouldn’t we all desire to stay close to the Lord? We cannot live for the Lord if we do not seek to be close to Him. We get into spiritual trouble when we are not in close proximity to the Lord. Actually, we are not at our best when we are not close to the Lord. We must keep that in mind, because the Lord is always close to us, and if we are not close to Him it is because we have moved. He has promised to always stay close to us like a shepherd stays close to his sheep. Jesus said, “Lo I am with you alway….” The desire to be close to the Lord should be our desire too. David wanted to behold the beauty of the Lord. David desired to stay close to the Lord in order to constantly observe His beauty. Another translation of “beauty” is “delightfulness.” Being close to the Lord, David could delight in Him. Among other things, to observe the delightfulness of the Lord is to observe His grace. What would we do without God’s delightful grace at work in our lives? If we do not stay close to the Lord, we can’t really enjoy His grace. It also means to observe God’s great love for us. We should delight in His love everyday of our lives, and never take it for granted. I know that my life would be miserable if I did not know and serve the God who loves me and wants the best for me. Do we really stay close enough to God to observe His grace and love on a daily basis? David desired to “enquire in His temple.” As related earlier, the temple was not yet built but it was in the mind and heart of David. He did everything that needed to be done for Solomon to build it. What David wanted in his closeness to God was to pray every day. In Psalm 55:16-17 David wrote: “As for me, I will call upon God: and the Lord shall save me. 17. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud:and He shall hear my voice.” In his desire to stay close to the Lord, David felt the need to pray and communicate with God. Could it be that prayer is difficult for us sometimes because we are not as close to the Lord as we should be? The closer we get to Jesus, the more we should want to talk to Him and have Him speak to our hearts. We should always be aware of our need for prayer and closeness to our Lord. We need to ask ourselves if we desire to be close to God. Could it be that we do not see His delightfulness as we should, and that we do not pray as often as we should because we are not living close to Him? Let Psalm 27:4 remind you of the importance of staying close to God every day. Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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