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God's plan for reaching people far from Him has
always been to have a people near Him. This
is one of our core values here at Hill Point.
You and I were created to live with God.
Living apart from Him is totally foreign to our design
specifications. God has reminded us of
this important truth multiple times down through the centuries. For example, "The Lord is with you when you are with Him. And if you seek Him, He will let you find
Him. . ." (2 Chron. 15:2), as well as, "Draw
near to God and He will draw near to you." (James 4:8).
From day one, God’s plan was to dwell together
with man. Of all the incredible and
awe-inspiring aspects of the Garden of Eden, the actual Presence of the Lord
was its most outstanding and glorious feature.
But the last time Adam and Eve “heard
the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” was
the day that sin entered into the human race.
From that moment on, the Glory of His Presence was lost to them.
After that, from time to time, the Glory would resurface
as God reached down and began working His plan to reestablish relationship with
His most treasured part of all creation.
- Enoch walked with God; then he was no more,
because God took him away.
- Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his
time; Noah walked with God.
- The God of glory appeared to our father
Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia.
- Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting,
and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses was not able to enter the tent of
meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord
filled the tabernacle.
- The glory of the Lord appeared to all the
people . . . and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on
their faces.
- Then the house, the house of the Lord, was
filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister
because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.
However, near the end of Old Testament history, the
Glory was lost once again during the period of Israel’s exile to Babylon (and
once again because of the sin of man).
Ezekiel records in detail the sad moment when the Glory of the Lord
moved from the Ark of the Covenant in the Most Holy Place to the threshold of
the temple, to the east gate of the temple, to the midst of the city, and
finally over the mountain east of the city (Ezekiel 10-11).
But God wasn’t finished working His plan.
When the moment was just right, God brought His
Glory to earth in the most personal and tangible way possible. “The
Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One
and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The Glory of God was fully restored to be
with man in the person of Jesus Christ. “The Son is the radiance of God's glory and
the exact representation of his being.”
But there’s even more! God had
another surprise in store for us.
The Incarnation (God in the flesh) was more than
just another visitation. This was about
habitation. God wanted to have His
dwelling once again with man - permanently.
In Jesus’ prayer to the Father in John 17, He said “the glory which You have given Me I have given to them. . .” Jesus disclosed that the Father’s purpose was
“bringing many sons to glory.” He intends for His glory to reside in
us! No longer in a tent, or a tabernacle
or a temple made by human hands - now He lives in us!
This is what The Church is. It is where God chooses to dwell in our day
and age. “Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's
Spirit lives in you?” Those of us
who are God’s children through faith in Jesus Christ comprise the greatest
display and Presence of the Glory of God in the earth to date! And this is God’s plan for reaching those who
still are far from Him. His Glory, no
longer residing in just one geographic location (e.g. the Old Testament temple)
now is filling the earth as His Church is growing to include “every tribe and tongue and people and
nation.”
In Jesus our King,
Pastor Scott
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