‘Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; they are ever praising You’ (Psalm 84:4)
I have been going to church most of my life.
My mum was a vicar’s daughter, so we had to go. And in those days it was still fairly respectable. Later, in the early 70s we would all traipse down to the local Anglican church along with the kids from my father’s children’s home. I’m afraid to say, when the collection plate was passed round, a lot more money was taken out than was put in!
In my teenage years, my brother and I were choirboys in the village church. My brother made a seraphic choirboy, I can tell you! But I became increasingly disillusioned with church at this time. It seemed as if the minister was just rattling through the liturgy and the Lord’s prayer as fast as He could go, without giving it any real meaning.
When pressure was put on me to be confirmed, I declined. I didn’t believe in all that stuff.
Not that I had anything against Jesus. I reckoned he was the wisest, most loving person who had ever lived (true as far as it goes), but nothing more.
It was when I was at university that I met real believers, who invited me along to their church, and eventually I discovered that their God was real.
On my way to a packed student church one evening, I stopped and prayed, ‘God, please show me if you’re real.’
Let me tell you, don’t pray that prayer if you don’t want to meet with the living God!
And you know, the answer to that prayer stopped me in my tracks and turned my whole life around (I’ll tell the full story another day).
From that time on I’ve been a Bible-believing Christian, and I’ve come to see that true faith is nothing to do with ‘churchianity.’ It has nothing to do with tired old rituals and a respectability cult. It’s all about knowing God through faith in Jesus Christ, who is truly the Saviour of the world. There is no greater joy than worshipping the living God in the midst of His people.
God is real! And knowing and loving Him is the greatest thing you will ever experience. There is nothing greater than the Father’s love, the grace of Christ and the life of the Spirit in our lives as we worship together.
‘Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; they are ever praising You.’
For the psalmist, writing in the Old Testament era, God’s house was the Temple, the place where God was especially present for His people. And the writer yearns for the presence of the Living God.
‘How lovely is Your dwelling place, LORD Almighty. My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God’ (v1-2).
Surely this is the longing of every believing heart, to know the radiant blessing of God’s presence, and to bring Him our praise.
Here, the psalmist so longs for His God that he even envies the birds that have found a way into the sanctuary, and made a nest near the altar (v3). This is the place of sacrifice (in New Testament terms it represents the cross where Jesus Christ died for us).
May we also look to remain near to the cross, and delight in God’s presence in our lives.
‘..a place near your altar, LORD Almighty, my King and God.’ (v3)
But unlike the psalmist we don’t have to go to the Temple to meet with God. Indeed, we are the Temple, both together and individually (1 Cor 3:16; 2 Cor 6:16,etc). The living God lives in us by His Spirit, because of what Christ has done for us. Each one of us can come into His presence freely through prayer (Ephesians 3:12). So it may be sad that we can’t meet together in the same building at the moment. But it doesn’t matter. We can still worship Him together where we are.
For the last 15 years I’ve been serving as a minister in the church. It’s an immense privilege, serving God and His people in this way. But the real privilege is still the same, knowing God and loving Him as my heavenly Father, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the power of His Spirit in my life. May I always praise Him, ‘my King and my God.’
And all of us who know and love the Lord can do the same. We are all priests in His house, called to offer ‘spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ’ (1 Peter 2:5).
May we always live to praise Him!