Second Chronicles chapter 7. Seeing the Glory of God.
Hey Everyone!
What I find interesting is that Israel corporately celebrated the dedication of the altar for 7 days. They worshipped God and gave thanks and offered many sacrifices. Think about it… They did it CORPORATELY for 7 DAYS!!!
I'm trying to think of one thing the body of Christ does corporately for 7 days in worshipping the Lord together or seeking the Lord together or praying to the Lord together or anything.
As they did this, the glory of the Lord was powerfully displayed.
As a kid, I remember having a week-long of missions week. We'd have seven days of missionary speakers. Anymore, you fight to get people together for two days of missions.
I feel like so many people in churches operate without God's power. There's a lack of commitment and faith. I'm no different. I'm guilty too. 2nd Timothy 3:5 talks about how the church will present themselves as having a form of godliness but they will deny God's power.
Can you imagine what God could do through the church, if when we gathered, we came ready to make sacrifices, forsaking all things so we could, with delight, be in the presence of the Lord. And we came with a heart to worship and give thanks and to be in God's Word. We came expecting to give all of our self and as a result would see the glory of God in power in the church and through our lives. I want when I leave the church for people to see the glory of God through my life. I want to approach each day with a heart of excitement that I get to be with the Lord and I get to worship Him daily with my life. I get to be used by him daily to impact lives around me. I want when I leave for people to feel as if they were in the presence of God because they see God's power in me.
The 2 verses that stood out to me the most from this chapter today were verses 13 & 14.
“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name humble themselves, and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
I know that it doesn’t really properly answer the question that Pastor Blair asked today, but Family Camp is what first came to my mind whenever I thought about doing something together for 7 days.
When reading about how the fire came down from heaven, I thought about the glory of the Lord and I took a closer look at 2 Peter 3:10-13.
“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to His promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.”
The more that I study and learn from God’s Word, the more that I realize that there is so much more that I need to study and learn from God’s Word similar I think to being able to see now in a mirror dimly as we read about in 1 Corinthians 13:12-13.
“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”