“For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion: in the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me. He shall set me upon a rock.” Psalm 27:5
Dear Ones:
One of the great values of the Psalms is that they are testimonials of WHO the Lord Is, and how He works. One of those aspects of His working has to do with being “hidden.” In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he writes: “For you are dead, and your life is HID with Christ in God.” (3:3) In declaring this truth, in part he is referring to the inseparableness of Christ and the believer, for NOTHING can separate him from the love of God. (Romans 8:39) But the meaning goes deeper, for Paul speaks of a life being HID with Christ. Jesus once said that, “…they (the believers), shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.” (Jn. 10:28) He went on to say, in order to assure the believer, “…My Father, which gave them to me is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.” (10:29) Here is an example of being secure, in the quietness and aloneness with God. It is a security “from all alarms,” with regard to eternity, in spite of the assailing winds of opposition and unbelief. But, what about our lives on earth, as they are in heaven? Is there a security, a hidden place of certain good, here on earth?
When the Lord Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman concerning worship, He sought to deliver her from the narrow idea and perspective of there being just a physical place where one should worship. Jesus’ sought to bring the woman to see that true worship was not limited to the physical place, like Jerusalem, but the actual presence of God. As the Lord was in the midst of Israel, so Christ is that one who IS with the believer. He is that One who walks in the midst of the candlesticks, those physical representations of individual churches, as mentioned in the book of Revelation. So then, and according to Psalm 139, we are ALWAYS in His presence, and He in ours. But, how is He our “hiding place,” and what does this mean, as we seek to love and serve God?
In Psalm 27, we find David writing of his great desire to live a life of “dwelling in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” (v.4) His purpose for desiring this was that he could, without distraction, “…behold the beauty of the Lord, and inquire in His temple.” Believers throughout the world cannot go to Jerusalem, enter the temple (which was destroyed in 70 A.D.), to dwell there and behold the beauty of the Lord. However, they can worship God in Spirit and in truth wherever they are on this globe, because of the promise of His presence, and the provision of His power. Dwelling in His presence is choosing to LIVE by faith in Him, with whom the believer is forever one, having been made a new creation IN Christ, placed in Him, and been made complete in Him. What does this mean? One of the greatest blessing of life, if not the greatest, is that the believer has been put in contact with true LIFE in Christ, into an inseparable union. He is one with Him, Christ’s life by the Spirit, available to Him to know and live, according to the will of God. There is no resource lacking, no need that cannot be met. So that, whatever the need, in the hidden presence of Christ, declared to us in truth, God is able and willing to meet it, setting the feet of the believer upon a rock, one that cannot be moved. Our responsibility is to seek the Lord’s face, (Ps. 27:8) trusting Him to teach us His way, believing Him to lead us in a plain, or clear, path.(v.11) It is in the quiet of Christ’s presence, worshiping Him, that “…He will strengthen the heart.” (v.14)
Dear Father, Give us grace this day to live in the secret of Thy presence, deriving all from Christ for Thy glory. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Love, Dad