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Dwelling Place

Ephesians 3:17 (AMP) so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through your faith. And may you, having been [deeply] rooted and [securely] grounded in love

It has been nineteen years since we moved into our home. I was pregnant with our second child (our youngest) and we were looking to move to the city our church had planted roots. At the time we lived twenty miles away. That is not a bad drive for a Sunday. We were not at church only on Sundays. We were at church six, maybe seven days a week. We had to be there at six in the morning, and we did not leave until after six in the evenings. That is a huge tole on young family. So, we decided to sell our starter home and move.

Did I tell you I was pregnant? I had specific wants for our new home. We were looking for a house with a back yard and mature trees. So that took out the new construction. I also wanted something with character. My husband and realtor were troopers. We physically went to nearly eighty houses that summer. I was in my third trimester and we were getting desperate. We decided to ride around neighborhoods and found a home for sale by owner. We called and made an appointment to see the house. We took our then three-year-old and when we knocked on the door he asked, “Can we buy your house?” It was our house. We moved in just weeks before our baby arrived.

My boys got to grow up in this house. They have had birthday parties and friends sleep over. We have had camp outs in the back yard. We have a pool, so the kids would come over every summer. Bikes were in our driveway in the summer. Our home is a welcome place for anyone who needs a hot meal, a listening ear and a place to just hang out. This is where we dwell.

Ephesians 2:22 (AMP) In Him [and in fellowship with one another] you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

The church community we belong to is also a very important dwelling place for us. As I was in prayer I heard “dwelling place” and I started to list all the parts of what a dwelling place needs. First, our dwelling place should be a place of rest. This is where we sleep and release the stress of the day. Second, this is where we cook and eat our meals. This is where we are nourished. Third, we bathe and or shower in our dwellings. This is where we keep clean. Fourth, our homes (according to the word) are where we provide hospitality. We invite the community and give freely of ourselves. Finally, it is where we abide. This is where we get to know the others we are residing with. Our dwelling places are secure because of the foundation it is on.

Look at all five of those characteristics I laid out, and can you apply them to the home you live in now? What about your relationship with Christ? What about the church you belong to?

Psalm 23:6 (AMP) Surely goodness and mercy and unfailing love shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell forever [throughout all my days] in the house and in the presence of the Lord.

Psalm 27:4 (AMP) One thing I have asked of the Lord, and that I will seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord [in His presence] all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty [the delightful loveliness and majestic grandeur] of the Lord and to meditate in His temple.

Dwelling place is three-fold in my life. It is the home that I have created with my husband and children. It is the relationship I have with Christ. I have invited Him to dwell with me. That means He has full access to every area and permission to rearrange His dwelling. Also, my church is part of my dwelling. Although my husband and I are pastors, we find rest there, it is not a burden to get to serve the way we do. We are nourished in the presenting of the Word and the corporate worship we are a part of. The washing of the Word is an essential part of our lives. Our faith grows every time we hear the Word, from our mouths and those around us. The community we have and the way we freely give of ourselves is the hospitality that we are called to (Romans 12:3, Romans 16:2, Hebrews 13:2). The abiding with Christ should give us a desire to get to know those we worship with. I once heard that you will not grow any more in your vertical relationship unless you learn to grow in the horizontal relationships, in the place God has planted you.

I am so very grateful for the dwelling place. The foundation of my dwelling is secure so that I can be planted and grow spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. “Beloved, I pray that in every way you may succeed and prosper and be in good health [physically], just as [I know] your soul prospers [spiritually] (3 John 2),” is a scripture that I hold close to my heart. My soul needs a dwelling place. Yes, I have a soul, my soul dwells within me. However, what is feeding my soul? All five of those characteristics of my dwelling place are what feeds my soul as well. If my dwelling is messed up, then my thinking is going to be messed up. My heart will be self-centered in the wrong dwelling place. I have found a dwelling place that has strengthened me in my growth with Christ. He dwells within me and has full access to His dwelling.

I have taken Psalm 84 as our prayer for today. Read it, speak it, and meditate on it:

How lovely are Your dwelling places,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul (my life, my inner self) longs for and greatly desires the courts of the Lord;
My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.
The bird has found a house,
And the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young—
Even Your altars, O Lord of hosts,
My King and my God.
Blessed and greatly favored are those who dwell in Your house and Your presence;
They will be singing Your praises all the day long. Selah.

Blessed and greatly favored is the man whose strength is in You,
In whose heart are the highways to Zion.
Passing through the Valley of Weeping (Baca), they make it a place of springs;
The early rain also covers it with blessings.
They go from strength to strength [increasing in victorious power];
Each of them appears before God in Zion.
O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer;
Listen, O God of Jacob! Selah.
See our shield, O God,
And look at the face of Your anointed [the king as Your representative].
For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand [anywhere else];
I would rather stand [as a doorkeeper] at the threshold of the house of my God
Than to live [at ease] in the tents of wickedness.
For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
The Lord bestows grace and favor and honor;
No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.
O Lord of hosts,
How blessed and greatly favored is the man who trusts in You [believing in You, relying on You, and committing himself to You with confident hope and expectation].

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Not Rejected but Accepted

Psalm 142:5 (AMP) I cried out to You, O Lord; I said, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.”

In my personal studies I am reading the Bible in chronological order. I have been using the You Version App and it has a plan to read it in a year. I cannot say that I read every day, but I do catch it up to where I should be in line with what it wants me to be at. Right now I am in the middle of 1 Samuel and some of the Psalms. These were the Psalms that David wrote as he was being pursued by Saul the first time. I encourage you to read your Bible in different ways and in different translations. The Word of God is living and brings fresh revelation (like the manna) every day. Here are some that stood out to me:

Psalms 142: 4-7 (AMP) Look to the right [the point of attack] and see; for there is no one who has regard for me [to act in my favor]. Escape has failed me and I have nowhere to run; no one cares about my life. I cried out to You, O Lord; I said, “You are my refuge,my portion in the land of the living.
“Give attention to my cry, for I am brought very low; rescue me from my persecutors, for they are stronger than I. “Bring my soul out of prison (adversity), so that I may give thanks and praise Your name; the righteous will surround me [in triumph], for You will look after me.”

Psalms 56:8 (AMP) You have taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not recorded in Your book?

Psalms 56:5 (AMP) All day long they twist my words and say hurtful things; all their thoughts are against me for evil.

Psalms 34:14 (AMP) Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

Psalms 31:10-13 (AMP) For my life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing; my strength has failed because of my iniquity, and even my body has wasted away. Because of all my enemies I have become a reproach and disgrace, especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me on the street run from me. I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind; I am like a broken vessel. For I have heard the slander and whispering of many, terror is on every side; while they schemed together against me, they plotted to take away my life.

Reading these passages out of context (just reading the Psalms on their own) we would think that anything against us we have the right to wale like David did. In that context when we “think” people, family and/or the world is against us we like to quote these verses of David. I want to make something clear, David was ACTUALLY/LITERALLY RUNNING FOR HIS LIFE!

I had a Psalms 56:5 moment the other day (All day long they twist my words and say hurtful things; all their thoughts are against me for evil.) Then I had to think, “If I had to explain this to an non-believer what would they think?” They would probably think I was nutty, fruity and flaky. Here is what I want you to notice what David did recognize, in Psalms 142:7, he writes, “Bring my soul out of prison (adversity), so that I may give thanks and praise Your name; the righteous will surround me [in triumph], for You will look after me.” When we lament over our thoughts of adversity, we put our own souls in prison. Most of the battles we are facing are in our minds, not like David here, who again was literally running for his life.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (KJV) For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds😉 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

People are not our problems. The more we dwell on them, and how you think you may feel about each other, we are putting up strongholds in the body of Christ that will keep us from reaching the ones that need Jesus. We are the light of the World and we cannot show our light if we keep putting up these strongholds. We cannot keep “feeling” like this against our brothers and sisters in Christ and be effective. We are doing like David said and have put our souls in prison. Let us cast down these thoughts, these imaginations and focus on who we are truly called to be.

1 Peter 2:9-10 (MSG) But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.

We are not rejected, we are accepted!