Making music

DEVOTION

PSALMS

MAKING MUSIC

Ps 27:4-6

4 One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. 5 For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock. 6 Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at his tabernacle will I sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the LORD.

NIV

To dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our life and to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple, is the best thing we could ever imagine. One way we could see this is to simply look in the mirror. Because God has declared we are being built into the temple of the Lord,

Eph 2:19-3:1

19 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. 22 And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

NIV

Because we are his temple, his dwelling place, we gaze, we look upon our lives as his dwelling place. This has to move us to live in a manner which pleases him. Because he dwells within us, we should be seen as the beauty of the Lord. When we consider the massive structures of the past, the temples, the churches, the basilicas and all those which people visit to enjoy the splendor of those buildings, we have to know people sense the presence of God within. The question is that because we are the temple of the living God, do people sense the presence of the Lord within us?

However, the meaning of this psalm might well be seen better as in the way we live. Being a believer, a follower of Jesus, we live as though we are living in his temple all the days of our life. What does that look like?  This brings us back to being the temple of God. We should live as being his temple. We should live both as the temple as well as being the royal priesthood who serves in the temple. At the same time we have to know that being in his temple, God being our shelter, our fortress, our rock, upon whom we base our lives, he will keep us and hold us in the palm of his hand. The enemy cannot harm us, we are kept safe. When we have some trouble, and surely that it true, trouble does have a tendency to find us from time to time, He will keep us safe. That implies then any trouble cannot do us harm, in fact God can use trouble to teach us, to bring us closer to him. No matter what life brings, we have hope in the Lord. We will continually sing praises, make music in his tabernacle, which brings us back to being his temple, his tabernacle. We will make music in our heart, we will sing to the Lord within our heart, and in doing that, people cannot help sense the presence of the Lord when they are in our presence. Let us make music.