His Heart, My Home

“Let us go into His tabernacle; let us worship at His footstool. Arise, O Lord, to your resting place, you, and the ark of your strength.”
(Psalm 132:7-8)

“For the Lord has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His dwelling place; ‘This is my resting place forever. Here I will dwell, for I have desired it.”
(Psalm 132:13-14)

These verses are some of the most powerful in the entire Bible. In them, God opens up His heart and reveals His deepest desires as our Father!

More than anything else, He longs for our presence, as we intimately fellowship and commune with Him. He actually desires our presence more than we desire His.

The Hebrew word translated as “desire” (avah) means “to long for; to covet; to lust for”.

The Hebrew word for “rest” (menuchah) means “a place of ease and comfort; a rest of love.”

So God is saying, “My heart longs for, covets, and has a deep yearning to be with you. I want you to rest in my love as we share a place of ease and comfort together.”

When we worship in Spirit and in truth, the direct connection between our heart and God’s heart is enhanced and amplified. The Seeker finds what He has passionately sought… not the worship, but the presence of the worshippers. And the worshippers connect heart-to-heart with the One they are worshipping. (John 4:23-24)

Love is given… Love is received… Love is returned…Love is given again… A perfect circle of love is expressed and experienced. Healing, life-giving rivers flow from our Father’s heart to ours, and back to Him again.

Our hearts begin to beat in a radically new rhythm. There is a paradigm shift from “God is everywhere” to “God is HERE, NOW!” He is present, not just through the written Word, but through the experiential Word.

Our prayers, praise, and worship invite the living presence of our Eternal Father, who is actively and passionately seeking our presence!

When we speak of God’s “presence”, we often find it hard to articulate exactly what that means. Basically, God reveals His presence to us in three different ways:

● His “omnipresence”
This means that God fills all space and time with Himself. There is no place, not a single moment in all eternity, where God’s presence is absent. He is everywhere forever! (Psalm 139:7-10)

● His “indwelling presence”
Generally, God is omnipresent. Yet, specifically, He is present in the spirit of the born-again believer, in a way that is personal and unique. We are the temple of God’s Holy Spirit. God dwells in us. (1 John 4:13  and Hebrews 13:5)

● His “manifested presence”
God is always with us. He never leaves us nor forsakes us. We can never lose the reality of His presence, but we can (and often do) lose the sense of His presence.

The manifested presence of God means God’s presence is being revealed in a tangible way. We could also call this “His experiential presence”.

Our awareness of Him is reawakened as He gives us clear and convincing proof of His presence.

Often during these times of His manifested presence, we are confronted with some aspect of His character: His wisdom, His holiness, His power, or His love.

It is during these times that He will do a deep work within us, realigning us, restoring us, and refreshing us by His Spirit.

There are varying degrees of His manifested presence, also known as His “Shekinah” glory.
Some examples from the Bible:

● God’s powerful presence during the dedication of Solomon’s Temple. The glory cloud of the Lord’s manifested presence (The Hebrew word for glory is “kabod” which means “weighty or strong”) was so powerful, so thick, so heavy, the priests “could not stand” to minister.
(2 Chronicles 5:13-14, KJV)

● The outpouring of Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Notice the description of His powerful entrance from these different translations of Acts 2:1-4:

Amplified Bible, Classic Edition – When suddenly there came a sound from heaven like the rushing of a violent tempest blast.

Living Bible – … like the roaring of a mighty windstorm in the skies above them…

Passion Translation – ² Suddenly they heard the sound of a violent blast of wind, rushing into the house from out of the heavenly realm. The roar of the wind was so overpowering.It was all anyone could hear ³ Then all at once.A pillar of fire appeared before their eyes.It separated into tongues of fire that engulfed each one of them.

● Mighty moves of God in our own nation, such as the Great Awakenings, the Azusa Street Revival, the Healing Revival, and others.

● However, not all manifestations of His presence are earth-shaking. God called Elijah to  meet with Him. As he stood on the mountainside, Elijah encountered a wind strong enough to break rocks into pieces, then an earthquake, and then a fire.
But God’s Spirit was manifested to Elijah as a “still small voice”. (1 King’s 19:11-13)

God may also speak to our hearts in a gentle whisper, or He may make Himself known to us through the fluttering wings of a dove beside a quietly flowing stream. (Mark 1:10)

Whether gentle or forceful, we can invite and experience God’s manifested presence in our personal lives, and in the gatherings of our local church.

As we express our faith, love and devotion to Him, we can be assured that He will respond to the longing of our hearts for His presence.

He will manifest Himself in us and through our:

● Prayers – Matthew 18:19-20

● Praise and Worship – Psalm 22:3

God’s presence is addictive! The more deeply we experience Him, the more we crave Him. And the more we crave, the more we experience Him.

“The one thing I want from God, the thing I seek most of all, is the privilege of meditating in his Temple, living in his presence every day of my life, delighting in his incomparable perfections and glory.” (Psalm 27:4)

When we really begin to press into God, we will  see His presence powerfully manifested in our hearts, our homes, our churches, and our cities.