“Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations,” “…even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.” Psalm 90:1,2
If there is one characteristic about the nature of God that should always bring us to our knees, it is the fact that He is ETERNAL. Just in mentioning the word, “eternal,” we are immediately brought before the fact that He does not change. He is as Scripture declares, always the same, yesterday, today, and forever. Thus, the God of Moses who composed Psalm 90, is the God of the New Testament, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The One who walks among the churches, the Alpha and Omega, Beginning and the End, was the same in the days of Isaiah as He is today. That which is different in our consideration of Him is the knowledge that the Scriptures give us of Him, and the magnitude and effectiveness of the Spirit’s ministry to every believer to reveal the things of Christ to us. The call to Moses was that he should know the Eternal God. We see this when Moses askes the Lord to show him His ways that he might know Him, and then, to show him His glory, which God did in an extraordinary way. When we come to the New Testament, and the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ, we find the objective to be the same. It was the Lord Jesus who said that eternal life was to “…know You (the Father), the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (Jn. 17:3) But then the question arises: “How are we to know Him, and to what extent, or how much?” It is in seeking the answer to this question that we consider the God of the Old Testament as our dwelling place, and the God of the New Testament, the same true and living God, as our place of abiding, or dwelling. The Eternal God is the same, and the call to men from God remains the same.
In his day, Moses was considered to be the most meek, humble man in all the earth. He was a man who learned to live before God according to the truth of God. One of the great lessons that he learned, and this in the context of the eternity of God, and the time given to every man to know Him, was that God was closer than Moses could ever have imagined. Moses learned that in the true worship of God, and a prayerful life of faith that he could live in great proximity to God, dwelling in Him. Jesus, in the New Testament, would speak of this relationship as one of abiding in Christ, dwelling in Him, living in blessed union with the Son of God by the Spirit. Did Moses understand all that this meant, to live in and by God as his dwelling place? No. Can a believer in our day, know fully what it means to abide in the living, Almighty and glorious Christ as one’s dwelling place? No. But, much can be known by the work of the Spirit of God revealing the things of Christ to us. So, Moses learned that he could live in great proximity to God, and the believers after the resurrection learned that they could abide in Christ, and Christ in them, according to His glorious power.
Practically speaking, Moses appropriated God, received from God, specific things as he lived in this perspective. He prayed for a wise heart in the face of limited time on this earth. He asked God to reveal His compassion upon him and His servants, satisfying them with His joy and rejoicing. He then would appeal to God for the revelation of the Spirit to reveal the WORK of God to His servants, the GLORY of God to their children, with God’s BEAUTY resting upon them all. Finally, he would ask twice that God would establish the WORK of their hands, that it should last for eternity. To “…dwell in the secret place of the Most High,” is to abide in Christ.
Dear Father, Be our Dwelling Place. In Jesus’ name, Amen.