I have seen You in the sanctuary

Psalm 63 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

The Thirsting Soul Satisfied in God.

A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.

O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly;
My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You,
In a dry and weary land where there is no water.
² Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory.
³ Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips will praise You.
⁴ So I will bless You as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands in Your name.
⁵ My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness,
And my mouth offers praises with joyful lips.

⁶ When I remember You on my bed,
I meditate on You in the night watches,
⁷ For You have been my help,
And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy.
⁸ My soul clings to You;
Your right hand upholds me.

⁹ But those who seek my life to destroy it,
Will go into the depths of the earth.
¹⁰ They will be delivered over to the power of the sword;
They will be a prey for foxes.
¹¹ But the king will rejoice in God;
Everyone who swears by Him will glory,
For the mouths of those who speak lies will be stopped.

The psalmist says:  O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly;
My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water.  In Matthew 22:37-38, Jesus repeating God’s commandment to Israel in Deuteronomy 6:4-5 says:  “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment.”    Do we truly know what it means to love God with all of our heart, soul and mind? Like the psalmist, do we with our mind determine to earnestly seek the Lord? Does our soul thirst for Him? Rather than yearning for worldly satisfaction, does our flesh yearn for God? Jesus says it is the first and great commandment. He continues saying:  “The second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”    Everything else that we know and do as a Christian is dependant on our first loving God. Being the first commandment; the thing that is foundational to everything else we do, we should do it early each day. Rather than seek to hear what the news media is saying, we should first seek to hear what God is saying. In Psalm 37:4, the psalmist says:  Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.  If we do not satisfy the need of our heart, soul and mind in God, we will seek to satisfy our flesh with worldly and selfish desires. Nothing that the world has to offer can fully satisfy our needs and desires. We were created in the image and likeness of God to fellowship and commune with Him. Whether we know it or not, that is the yearning of our soul.   

The psalmist says:  Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory. Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips will praise You.  So I will bless You as long as I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.  My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness,
And my mouth offers praises with joyful lips.   The sanctuary of God is not a building made by man. It is a place, any place where we determine to seek Him, to draw near to Him and to offer praise to Him. The sanctuary of God can be our living room or the kitchen. It can be a quiet spot in our backyard or in the woods; by a stream, a lake or a pond. The sanctuary of God can be in our car as we drive to work. It can be on a loud and busy street in the city. The sanctuary of God is wherever we seek Him and praise Him, and it is there too, that we will see His power and His glory. In Matthew 18:20 Jesus says:  “Where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst."  Even when we are alone or if we are alone in a crowd, we have the Holy Spirit with us and in us; Jesus will be there in our midst when we create a sanctuary of praise to His name. God’s loving kindness is better than anything that life can offer. It never fails.

The psalmist says:  When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches, For You have been my help, And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy. My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.  We should end our day as we begin it; seeking the Lord and meditating on Him. We should not count sheep to fall asleep. We should count the blessings of God. We should remember all the ways He has been our help and upheld us. In Isaiah 6:1-3, the prophet recounts a vision he saw:  In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.”   Regardless of the chaos in our lives and in the world, if we will see things from the perspective of heaven, from the sanctuary of God, we will see as the Seraphim, that the whole earth is filled with the glory of God.

With the psalmist I declare:  O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, In a dry and weary land where there is no water. Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory. Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, My lips will praise You. So I will bless You as long as I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.   Amen.