The Glory of God filled(s) the temple.

2 Chronicles 5:1-14 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

Thus all the work that Solomon performed for the house of the Lord was finished. And Solomon brought in the things that David his father had dedicated, even the silver and the gold and all the utensils, and put them in the treasuries of the house of God.

² Then Solomon assembled to Jerusalem the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the fathers’ households of the sons of Israel, to bring up the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of the city of David, which is Zion. ³ All the men of Israel assembled themselves to the king at the feast, that is in the seventh month. ⁴ Then all the elders of Israel came, and the Levites took up the ark. ⁵ They brought up the ark and the tent of meeting and all the holy utensils which were in the tent; the Levitical priests brought them up. ⁶ And King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel who were assembled with him before the ark, were sacrificing so many sheep and oxen that they could not be counted or numbered. ⁷ Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place, into the inner sanctuary of the house, to the holy of holies, under the wings of the cherubim. ⁸ For the cherubim spread their wings over the place of the ark, so that the cherubim made a covering over the ark and its poles. ⁹ The poles were so long that the ends of the poles of the ark could be seen in front of the inner sanctuary, but they could not be seen outside; and they are there to this day. ¹⁰ There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets which Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the sons of Israel, when they came out of Egypt.

¹¹ When the priests came forth from the holy place (for all the priests who were present had sanctified themselves, without regard to divisions), ¹² and all the Levitical singers, Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their sons and kinsmen, clothed in fine linen, with cymbals, harps and lyres, standing east of the altar, and with them one hundred and twenty priests blowing trumpets ¹³ in unison when the trumpeters and the singers were to make themselves heard with one voice to praise and to glorify the Lord, and when they lifted up their voice accompanied by trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and when they praised the Lord saying, “He indeed is good for His lovingkindness is everlasting,” then the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, ¹⁴ so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.

God is omnipresent. He is everywhere. In Psalm 139:7-10 the psalmist says: Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.  For us too, we have the assurance of His omnipresence, that He is everywhere. There is no time or place when or where God is not with us. There is a difference though between knowing God’s omnipresence and experiencing the manifest presence of God and His glory.   In today’s text it says:  when the trumpeters and the singers were to make themselves heard with one voice to praise and to glorify the Lord, and when they lifted up their voice accompanied by trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and when they praised the Lord saying, “He indeed is good for His lovingkindness is everlasting,” then the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.      In the manifest presence of the glory of God the priests could not stand. In Psalm 22:3 the psalmist says:  thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.   The praise of Israel brought forth the manifest presence of God, to the temple. He was already there, but in the presence of His glory no one in the temple could stand.

In 1 Corinthians 3:16 it says:  Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?   God is always present, even in the difficult times. In Deuteronomy 31:6 He says: “Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the Lord your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.”  In Psalm 23 the psalmist says:    The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies…    Again, there is a difference though, for us also, between the indwelling presence of God in our lives and the manifest presence of God in all His glory. In Romans 12:1 it says:  I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.     If we would live our lives as that holy sacrifice, as worship to God, then rather than only having His spiritual presence with us for our own needs, we would have the accompanying power of His manifest presence to meet the needs of others.     Romans 14:11 says:   For it is written, "AS I LIVE, SAYS THE LORD, EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW TO ME, AND EVERY TONGUE SHALL GIVE PRAISE TO GOD."       The apostles in the early church were full of the power of the presence of God. People would lay the sick and the lame along the streets in the hopes that Peter’s shadow might pass over them and they would be healed. (Acts 5:15) Sickness, disease, anything contrary to the Spirit of God, must submit and bow its knee to the power of the presence of God and His glory.

There are times that we see and experience what happens when the glory of God touches the things of earth. Miracles of healing and deliverance are the result God’s presence impacting earth. Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  When we see and experience miracles, we are seeing glimpses of the realities of heaven here on earth. When Jesus was on the cross, He said: “It is finished!” (John 19:30) Everything that Jesus came to do was finished and accomplished in the cross. He redeemed us from sin. He reconciled us to God, and He restored all things to the way they were intended to be. In the beginning, when God created heaven and earth, when He created man, He created it in perfection, each thing as He designed and intended it. Genesis 1:26 says:  Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”    Genesis 1:31 says:  God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.       We were created in the image and likeness of God. Through the finished work of the cross, we are restored to the way we were created. If we will live lives of worship and praise to God, He will inhabit our praise. He will dwell with us and in us. It will be more than His abiding presence for us. It will be His manifest presence in us to touch the world, to bring the realities of heaven to the circumstances of earth. We will walk in the dominion He intended for us. Every knee will bow to the glory of God and more than praying, we will be: Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ, precious Holy Spirit I praise and worship You. I choose to live my life as worship to You. I pray that my life will be an acceptable offering to You, that You will inhabit my praise and that the glory of Your manifest presence will go with me wherever I am, that at the presence of Your power and glory, every knee will bow and the circumstances and situations of earth will become aligned with the reality of heaven. In Jesus name.  Amen.