Sanctuary? Camp Wabanna!
Hello Ladies! I hope you all had a great weekend. I found a sanctuary this weekend! It was with the beautiful women of The Church of the Ephiphany. I can’t wait to show you my pictures. I’ll have them up soon; a video too!
I loved your comments about what sanctuary means to you.
The Psalmist talks more about sanctuary in Psalm 77. In verse 13, in the New King James Version, the psalmist says, “Your way, O God, is in the sanctuary; who is so great a God as our God?” Notice he says Your way, the way of restoration, the way of healing is in the sanctuary. It is in His presence. Verse 14 goes on “You are a God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples. With your mighty arm you redeemed your people, the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.”
Knowing our king intimately has many benefits and when we know our King as Jehovah-Rophe, our healer, we can be healed; we can be made whole. The way to know Him as our healer is to be in His presence; in His sanctuary.
In the Old Testament, the sanctuary was a place; Hebrews 9:24 says that the sanctuary was a copy of heaven. What is heaven like? It is a place filled with the presence of God where everyone and everything is perfect. Many times in the Greek language the word perfect meant to be complete; to be whole.
So the question is how do we meet with Jehovah-Rophe, our healer in his sanctuary so that we can be made whole?
We make a choice to enter into his presence by spending time with Him. To enter into this special place and time with him it cannot be done with a quick 3 minute devotional reading and a prayer as we run out the door to start our day.
We start by finding time carved out for him and him alone. We can begin this time with him by worshipping him through song. I think of these as love songs to my King. We can begin our time with him by reading a portion in the Bible that speaks praises to him. The Psalms are filled with these. Acknowledging who he is sets our hearts in the right place to give and receive.
As we begin our time with him we ask him to show us what he wants us to know; we ask him to reveal to us what he has for us in his word that day. After asking the Holy Spirit to give us revelation, we begin by digging into his word. Not simply reading a quick devotion in the morning, but truly digging in and finding out the meaning of the verses for ourselves.
Each day when I spend time with the Lord, I try to read a chapter or two. As I read, I look for one or two verses that stand out more than the others and then I break them down, phrase by phrase.
Let’s do that to the passage we have just read. Psalm 77: 13.
Your way, Oh God. His way is the way that we want. His; not our’s. This will involve my will yielding to his. As John the Baptist said, “You must increase and I must decrease”.
Is in the sanctuary. His way, the way that we want to learn, is in the sanctuary. It is in His presence. Therefore, if we want to know His way, if we want his direction, wisdom, healing, we need to get in his presence!
Who is so great a God as our God? The psalmist is praising God. If your husband was to say to you, “What wife in the world is as good as you?” You would love that, wouldn’t you? So does God! The psalmist uses the word, “Our God”. Saying again, we are your people; you are our God!
As you break these verses down, look up words that you are not familiar with; just as I did with the word sanctuary. Use the dictionary. You can access one quickly on line. As I was studying this passage, I wanted to know who wrote it. Again, I used ask.com and asked who was Asaph the writer. If you have a study Bible, read the portion that is written before the book or about the passage in particular so that you can get an understanding on when this was written, under what circumstances and how did God’s word affect them.
Meditate on the passage. Write it out on a card that you can carry with you through the day and reflect on it quickly. Whisper prayers to the Lord throughout the day that pertain to what he has shown you. “In your sanctuary there is healing.” You can know His presence wherever you are throughout your day; in the car pool line, folding laundry, at your desk, or cooking dinner. In his presence, there is healing.
I have shared with you how I come into God’s sanctuary. How do you?
