Your Home -- God's Glory

One Year Bible
Old Testament passage for Monday, September 9, 2013:  Isaiah 3:1-5:30

⁴ When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning, ⁵ then the Lord will create above every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and above her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night. For over all the glory there will be a covering. ⁶ And there will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat, for a place of refuge, and for a shelter from storm and rain.  Isaiah 4:4-6 (NKJV)

God wants His glory to rest on your house.  As a result of Jesus' work, He will wash away your filthiness and purge away the bad.  That's just the beginning.  So many folks see Christianity as nothing more than forgiveness.  Do not get me wrong -- forgiveness and cleansing is WONDERFUL.  But that's not the end of the story.  It is the beginning.

There is a promise in these verses.  It is a promise of glory.  God says that EVERY HOME and EVERY ASSEMBLY will have the glory of God resting on it.

We can easily agree that our churches should be places where the manifest presence of God is so thick you can taste it.  That would be awesome.  Incidentally, every church SHOULD be that way.  When we gather, it should not be a boring, once-a-week chore.  It should be stepping into His shining presence.

But, there's more!  God says that EVERY DWELLING PLACE will have this glory, too.  That means your home.  This is a promise worth claiming.  Too often our homes are places of strife, anger, depression, and discord.  God wants joy to flow through our households.  

This does not mean that our homes become settings of endless austere religious activities.  It means that harmony, peace, love, and blessing permeates the very fabric of all that we do.  The atmosphere of heaven exists in our marriages, our leisure, our relationships, our lives.

In a world full of storms, our homes become a haven of protection.  This is part of what it means to be a light in the darkness.  It is not just what we say.  It is how we live.  Jesus comes and lives in our homes with us.  It is more than a visitation.  It is a habitation.  May each of us know such joy.