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HOW TO DWELL IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD
August 2, 2024One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to meditate in His temple.
Psalm 27:4
1. FOCUS ON THE ONE THING. Anytime the Bible says “one thing,” I know it is a focus verse. If you read the context of Psalm 27, David is in the midst of battle and struggles. Circumstances are not ideal. But David is saying I know where my help comes from. I know who my Helper is, and I don’t want to be preoccupied with secondary issues. I want to stay focused and keep my eyes on God.
2. RESIST DISTRACTION. The Hebrew word for dwell is yâshab. And it means to sit down, remain, settle, and endure.* In the Bible, when Jesus visited the home of two sisters, Martha got angry with her sister Mary because she was sitting at the Lord’s feet listening to His Word, while Martha felt she was left to do all the serving alone. The Bible describes Martha as “distracted with all her preparations” (Luke 10:40). “But the Lord answered and said to her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her’” (Luke 10:41-42). Preparation is important. But there comes a time when we’ve got to keep the big deal, the big deal. Above all else, this one thing we want to do: to sit, dwell, and remain at the Lord’s feet and listen to His Word.
3. START YOUR DAY WITH GOD. Every day, I begin by making God my priority. When I first wake up, I start thanking God. Then, my routine is to make a cup of coffee and read some daily devotional books. I turn on my Bible app and listen to Alexander Scourby read the King James Version. I enjoy nature, so I go outside, sit where the sun rises, and look at the trees. It is a great way to break cabin fever and have solitude with God. I pray that this stirs you to realize that right now, you can have a quiet moment between you and God with a very direct, genuine heart conversation. Read your Bible, talk to Him, and cast your cares on Him.
DAILY CONFESSION:
One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek, inquire for, and [insistently] require: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord [in His presence] all the days of my life, to behold and gaze upon the beauty [the sweet attractiveness and the delightful loveliness] of the Lord and to meditate, consider, and inquire in His temple. One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Psalm 27:4 AMPC; Philippians 3:13-14)
Press into the one thing!
Pastor Jeff Perry
Dwell, verb
To live as a resident; reside. To exist in a given place or state. To fasten one’s attention on something.
Copyright © 2024 St. Louis Family Church, All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reprinted or distributed in any form without prior written permission of St. Louis Family Church. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved. * “Yâshab, H3427.” Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. James Strong, 1890, p. 52. “Dwell, V.” American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Harper Collins Publishers, 2022, https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=dwell&submit.x=52&submit.y=10.
