Love the place where God’s glory dwells! (1)
[Psalms 26]
In his book “God's eye view,” Pastor Tommy Tenny said: ‘Public worship is not a matter of how many people have come to the meeting, but of how much God is present.’ I think it makes sense. But, for some reason, we seem to want ‘cheaply-microwave revival’ as Pastor Tommy Tenny said, rather than God's presence. It's like putting a bag of popcorn in a microwave to make the popcorn grains swell. It's simple, fast, and requires little effort. The reason why we want this “microwave revival” is because our spiritual taste like “fast food”. Like the fast food we often eat, we love “fast food” too in our spiritual lives. We want the worship service to be simple and quick. And we don’t like to have homework for the Bible study. When we pray over our problems, we complain because of the answer of our prayer isn’t fast and so on. Our spiritual tastes seem to have changed a lot. What is the result? The result is “spiritual atherosclerosis” (Tenny). Our appetite for fast food, short worship, or simple ceremonies eventually lead to spiritual atherosclerosis. Why do we get atherosclerosis? The causes include increased blood cholesterol, tobacco, high blood pressure, obesity, and lack of exercise. Of these causes, when we consider obesity and lack of exercise, these also apply to our spiritual life of faith. The Word of God seems to be poured out like a flood and we eat full, but it is plagued by spiritual obesity because we don’t obey the Word. The lack of spiritual exercise is the problem. Taking the word of God is not without problems, of course, but it is a bigger problem not to exercise spiritually after taking it. After all, spiritual atherosclerosis is twisting and paralyzing our thoughts as if the blood vessels are blocked and causing a stroke. In addition, spiritual arteriosclerosis prevents our heart from being changed into the heart of Christ and to love souls, as if the cardiovascular system is blocked, resulting in angina, myocardial tachycardia, or sudden death. This is the work of Satan. “Microwave-style revival” and “spiritual atherosclerosis” are all Satan's work. Satan is trying to stop us from offering true worship to God. He is trying to keep us from entering the glory of God and not experiencing God's presence by blocking worship that is like our lifeline. One example is Job. Satan first touched the cattle, including the cows and sheep, that belonged to Job, to remove Job's ability to worship from Job so that he would not worship God. But we must see the glory of God in worship. We must experience God's presence in worship. Therefore, we must dwell in the glory of God. And we must love the place where his glory dwells and yearn even more.
In Psalms 26:8, the psalmist David confesses “O LORD, I love the habitation of Your house And the place where Your glory dwells.” So, I want to meditate on how people who love the place where God's glory dwells under the heading “Love the place where God’s glory dwells!”
In Psalms 26:1 and 11, it is said that those who love the place where the glory of God dwells walk in his integrity: “Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity, And I have trusted in the LORD without wavering” (v. 1), “But as for me, I shall walk in my integrity; Redeem me, and be gracious to me” (v. 11). What does it mean to walk in integrity here? This doesn’t mean that David was perfect and innocent like God. It means that David didn’t make any mistakes in that matter and believed in the Lord at that time. In other words, he was never assimilated at that time with the guilty crowd (vv. 4, 5) (Park). In a word, David faithfully acted wholeheartedly. [“The word “integrity” is “tom” in the Hebrew language and has the meaning of sincerity, wholeheartedness (Park)]. In other words, David, who loved the place where the glory of God dwells, walked sincerely and wholeheartedly. Then, how does he who walks sincerely and wholeheartedly live his spiritual life? I want to meditate on one thing based on Psalms 26.
He who walks sincerely and wholeheartedly trusts in the Lord without wavering.
Look at Psalms 26:1 – “Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity, And I have trusted in the LORD without wavering.” The situation in which David walked in his integrity because he loved the place where the glory of God dwells was filled with wicked people. The wicked people are described as follow: “deceitful men” (v. 4), “pretenders” (v. 4), “evildoers” (v. 5), “the wicked” (v. 5), “sinners” (v. 9) and “bloodshed” (v. 9). In the midst of these many wicked people, David didn’t waver and trusted in the Lord. To be unwavering is to have no doubt in trusting God. If we are in the same situation as David, can we also trust in the Lord without wavering? Can we really trust in Him and not doubt in trusting in Him? This is true faith. True faith is completely dependent on God without wavering. David had pure faith with no doubt at all in trusting in God (cf. Jam. 1:6). David, who trusted entirely on God without doubting, asked God in faith like this: “Vindicate me, O LORD” (Ps. 26:1). David sought God's vindication. He asked God to judge between the innocent and the wicked who oppose him. David also prayed: “Examine me, O LORD, and try me; Test my mind and my heart” (v. 2). The word “Examine” here means ‘look deeply into the heart,’ and the word “Test” means ‘to put on a trial of fire to purify the metal’ (Park). ‘These words seem to refer to the shaking of things with something like tribulation because there are impurities in the person’s faith here (Park). David not only took the difficult situation he faced as an opportunity to look deeply into his own heart through the eyes of God, but also an opportunity for trial of his faith. Therefore, he became more and more steadfast in trusting in God. Here is the solidity of faith. David had this solid faith, a faith that he could use as a chance to look back on himself and train his will and heart by trusting in God, even in difficult and painful situation that were piled up with wicked people.
How is our faith? Is our faith as solid as David's faith? Are we completely trusting in God without wavering? Like David, we need to make crisis and adversity an opportunity to strengthen our own faith. In order to do that, we need to apply two lessons, like David in today's text: one, in crisis and adversity, we must examine ourselves deeply with the word of God, and the other is take crisis and adversity as an opportunity to strengthen our own will and heart. We must pray for forgiveness of our sins to God by realizing our many and great sins as we examine our hearts deeply with His words in the midst of crisis and adversity (25:11). Furthermore, we must obey His will, not ours, when we realize His will through crisis and adversity. David received this heart training in the midst of the dark forces surrounding him and persecuting him. Therefore, like David, we must know how to take crisis and adversity as the opportunity. Therefore, through the crisis and adversity we face, we must reveal God's glory even more. I hope and pray that we love the place where God’s glory dwell so that in the midst of crisis and adversity we may shine His glory.
With the desire to experience the glory of God in worship,
James Kim
(While feeling the need for the training of heart)