Glad to Be Here
Psalm 122:1 (ESV) I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD!”
Are you glad to come to God's house? You should be. For the writer of Psalm 122, there was no better place for he and fellow pilgrims to be than in the house of the Lord.
Imagine being a Jewish pilgrim. You wander through the desert plains of Palestine most of the year. But three times a year (and some times a few more) you go to the house of God for a festival where everyone from your big national family comes to worship and celebrate the presence of God together. What a beautiful thing.
Psalm 122:3–4 (ESV) Jerusalem—built as a city that is bound firmly together, 4 to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord.
For Israel, coming to Jerusalem and the Temple was like Christmas or Easter dinner with family. They were one people AND one nation tied together in a sweet community of fellowship with God.
Some of my fondest memories in childhood are Christmas dinners with my extended family. I have a lot of Italian heritage and we used to gather around my grandparents big table and eat lasagna and ham and meatballs and salad together. The smells, the sights and the fellowship were so sweet, I consider those times to be some of the happiest in my life.
That is how heaven is going to be. Psalm 122 may be talking about the Earthly Jerusalem for the Jewish nation in ancient times, but it's also pointing God's New Covenant people forward to the heavenly Jerusalem yet to come. The city of God that will come down from heaven as it reads in Revelation 21.
Revelation 21:2–3 (ESV) And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
I think about the family from that Christmas table of my childhood. Some have already departed for the next life. Others have scattered through their own paths of this life. We are separated. In separation there is sadness. But in Christ there is gladness because we know those who belong to Him will one day come together once and for all in the home that Jesus himself has prepared for us.
John 14:1–2 (ESV) “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
When you come to church and see each other... please remember, it's practice for the fulfillment of God's precious promise to His Children. One day you're going to be together with Him and with each other.
And it will feel like home.
Are you glad to come to God's house? You should be. For the writer of Psalm 122, there was no better place for he and fellow pilgrims to be than in the house of the Lord.
Imagine being a Jewish pilgrim. You wander through the desert plains of Palestine most of the year. But three times a year (and some times a few more) you go to the house of God for a festival where everyone from your big national family comes to worship and celebrate the presence of God together. What a beautiful thing.
Psalm 122:3–4 (ESV) Jerusalem—built as a city that is bound firmly together, 4 to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord.
For Israel, coming to Jerusalem and the Temple was like Christmas or Easter dinner with family. They were one people AND one nation tied together in a sweet community of fellowship with God.
Some of my fondest memories in childhood are Christmas dinners with my extended family. I have a lot of Italian heritage and we used to gather around my grandparents big table and eat lasagna and ham and meatballs and salad together. The smells, the sights and the fellowship were so sweet, I consider those times to be some of the happiest in my life.
That is how heaven is going to be. Psalm 122 may be talking about the Earthly Jerusalem for the Jewish nation in ancient times, but it's also pointing God's New Covenant people forward to the heavenly Jerusalem yet to come. The city of God that will come down from heaven as it reads in Revelation 21.
Revelation 21:2–3 (ESV) And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
I think about the family from that Christmas table of my childhood. Some have already departed for the next life. Others have scattered through their own paths of this life. We are separated. In separation there is sadness. But in Christ there is gladness because we know those who belong to Him will one day come together once and for all in the home that Jesus himself has prepared for us.
John 14:1–2 (ESV) “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
When you come to church and see each other... please remember, it's practice for the fulfillment of God's precious promise to His Children. One day you're going to be together with Him and with each other.
And it will feel like home.
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