What If God Lived In Your House?
If there’s anything that Tasha and I desire most for our home, it is that it will be a place where the presence of the Lord is welcome. She’s written about it on her blog before, and it’s true. We want those who visit our home to walk in and know that it is a place sanctified unto the Lord. A place where He is welcome. A place He inhabits. A place where His Spirit loves to manifest Himself.
Maybe you wonder if this is even possible. I’ve wondered that in the past. Is the presence of God in our physical homes something that should be normal? Commonplace? I would like to suggest that it is. It is a reality that can and should be true of the homes inhabited by sons and daughters of God. It just makes sense. God wants to be where His children are. (Matt. 18:20)
I was encouraged this morning through a passage of Scripture in 1 Chronicles 13. It follows on the heels of the account of Uzzah’s death when he tried to balance the ark of the Lord when the oxen stumbled. He reached out to catch the ark, and … well, God killed him. As you can imagine, this little incident caused no small stir and incited no small amount of fear among the people, especially David (1 Chron. 13:12). And instead of continuing the journey to Jerusalem, David decided it would be best to leave the ark where it was. (Good call since God just killed a moving man for trying to spot the ark!) And so as not to repeat this tragedy, the house of a guy named Obed-edom became a temporary storage facility for the ark of God for three months while David figured out a plan. Now, just to put it plainly, that’s kind of a big deal. The very presence of God, and all of His shekinah glory rested inside that box. And now that box was resting in the house of Obed-edom, a dude that we know nothing about. Just a normal guy who had the not-so-normal privilege of hosting God in his home.
To be honest, I’m not sure how all of that fits together in the little theological paradigm from which I often work (both of God’s killing Uzzah the moving man, and of His presence being inside of a 4′ x 3′ x 3′ rectangular cube). But My point is not to wax theological on these difficult subjects. My point is simply this: During those three months when the ark of God rested at Obed-edom’s house, something pretty amazing happened. Look what Scripture says:
“So David did not take the ark home into the city of David, but took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. And the ark of God remained with the household of Obed-edom in his house three months. And the Lord blessed the household of Obed-edom and all that he had.” – 1 Chronicles 13:13-14
2 Samuel’s account says similarly, “the Lord blessed Obed-edom and all his household.”
I can only begin to imagine what some of those blessings were. Financial? Economic? Agricultural? Physical? We don’t know. Scripture doesn’t say. But here’s one thing we do know:
Obed-edom had the blessing of the presence of the Lord.
There’s no greater blessing that I can think of or imagine for my home and my household than for it to be a habitation for the presence of the Lord. Sure, Obed had a step up on us. He had the ARK OF GOD in his home. But the truth is for those of us who call ourselves children of God, we are a holy habitation. 1 Peter 2:5 says that “you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood …” And 1 Chronicles 6:19 says, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own.”
The fact is, by very nature, our homes should radiate the presence and glory of God because of the spiritual houses and temples who inhabit our homes. WE are those spiritual houses. When we are filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18) and allowing God to live and shine through us each day, our homes then become a byproduct and a natural container for the presence of God. Maybe that sounds cooky, but I truly believe that. And that’s what I want for my home. That’s what I want for myself, my wife and my kids. I want to mortify sin (Rom. 8:13) and pursue holiness in such a way that there would be no hindrance to the presence and power of God in my life, and by nature of association, my household would become blessed by God in the process. I think if that would happen in the homes of all of us who call ourselves followers of Christ, our neighborhoods and cities would literally be changed by that same power.