Devotional Song: Go to this link … Please take the time to see a video of a worship service with the congregation singing Sanctuary praying for God to prepare all believers to become a living sanctuary of prayer and worship
Highlight Passage: Psalms 27: 7-8 [NKJV} … David - A man after God’s own heart in prayer …
7 Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice! Have mercy also upon me, and answer me.
8 When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”
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Highlight Context - NKJV: Psalms 27: 7-14 [NKJV] … GO TO THIS LINK …
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Reference Passage #1: 1st Chronicles 28: 9… [NKJV] … King David’s instructions to his son, Solomon, including exhortation to search for the mind/heart of God …
9 “As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a loyal heart and with a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will be found by you; but if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever. … “
Reference Passage #2: Romans 8: 26-27; 12: 1-2… [NKJV] GO TO THIS LINK … Our search of the sanctuary of God can lead to our become a living sacrifice of worship
Reference Passage #3: 1st Thessalonians 5: 16-18… [NKJV] …
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. …
Prayer is our passion - 24/7 - for the presence of God.
Reference Passage #4: Philippians 4: 6-8… [NKJV] GO TO THIS LINK … We become a living sacrifice - a sanctuary - of worship when we can set aide the world and dwell continually on those thoughts which honor God
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread devotional entry, authored by Anne Cetas, took readers back to examine what our lives would be like if we could become sanctuaries of worship, i.e., “living sacrifices” i- n the words of the Apostle Paul (see Romans 12: 1-2 - a passage we all should internalize).
The Author’s highlight passage came from one of King David’s Psalms (see the link above for study and mediation), where David was likely reflecting on the times when he was either on the run from Saul or from his own son, Absalom. … We know David was referred in Scripture as a “man after God’s own heart” [see 1st Samuel 13: 14]; and we know from the Psalms that David was a man who had a passion for the presence of God, continually seejubg after that relationship through prayer. But how and when did David become such a living sanctuary of prayer as the attached photo and linked song declare?
Well, I believe that David’s prayer life was forged out in the wilderness while, as a boy, he was watching over his father’s sheep as the primary family shepherd. And we know that as a boy in that lonely and dangerous wilderness, David forged a deep/abiding faith in God, … strong enough to fight off lions/bears as a shepherd and to defeat Goliath in battle. David had become a “living sanctuary” and the definition of the type of “living sacrifice and worship” which Paul wrote about in the New Testament (see Paul’s writings copied/linked above).
So how do we, with our deceit-ridden hearts (see Jeremiah 17:9) become the living sacrifice, modeled by David in the OT or Paul in the NT? Well, we do what David and Paul did. … They became what they modeled and preached, … by consciously pursuing a deep and abiding relationship with God, primarily by the way they thought and the decisions they made from those thoughts.
To me, prayer (especially the prayer called for in 1st Thessalonians 5: 17) is an attitude even more than one stopping to pray all day (i.e., “continually). So, being a living sanctuary of prayer/worship is - to me - a passion for the presence of God; and that is what David and Paul became, … living lives of sacrifice for their Lord.
Were they perfect in this? … We know they weren’t (e.g., David’s failure with Bathsheba and Paul’s declared weaknesses described in Romans 7). But their minds and lives were primarily in pursuit of God’s own heart; and in that pursuit they became sanctuaries of living worship for their Lord. And that should always be our passion and pursuit as well.
My Prayer for Today … Lord, I am here today doing all I can to become a living sanctuary of worship for You. Amen Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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