ONE THING
Key Verse: (2): #1. “One thing I desire of the Lord, that I will seek; That I may dwell in the house of the Lord forever all the days of my life. To behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.” (v.4)
#2. “ I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” (v.13)
Key Theme: David’s Life Statement.
Key Descriptives of God: Light and Salvation (v.1) Strength of My Life (v.1) Beautiful (v.4)
40 days to go! We have made it to day 27 of our Summer of His Love journey with His face shining upon us! What a delight it has been for me personally to spend 3 or 4 hours a day immersing in each Psalm. What an ongoing challenge it is to leave so many marvelous truths unwritten about as time runs out. Psalm 27 particularly gives me that challenge as it is one of my life chapters. When Elizabeth and I pastored for 14 years I spent 4 weeks just covering 4 words from verse 4 (and there is my favorite number sequence of 444— that would be another post). Several main songs we would worship to when growing up come out of this Psalm, so that too helps make it unforgettable. Let’s dive in.
LIGHT, SALVATION, STRENGTH, BEAUTY
These 4 words essentially make up the descriptives of God for this amazing Psalm. “The Lord is my Light and my Salvation”, is how it all begins. God does not just provide Light, He IS Light. Furthermore, He is not just Light, He is MY Light. David’s ongoing experiences of God in a MY way is revelation in itself. (MY Shepherd etc). “MY Salvation” is also just so good. Again the word “salvation” in Hebrew is YESHUA. “The Lord is MY JESUS!” What an Old Testament reveal. The word YESHUA, as we have previously pointed out, also means “Victory” and “Deliverance”. No wonder David follows saying, “Whom shall I fear?”. This revelation alone could sustain us all day. Darkness is not the problem— ever. Only the lack of “the Lord My Light” is a problem. Immersion in “the Lord My Salvation” will then take care of any other battle in life. YESHUA will save you for eternity, and give you victory here on earth. That is why David follows, still in verse 1, with “The Lord is the Strength of my life.” Do you sometimes get panicked at how weak and fragile you are? No worries, if your internal GPS redirects to God as Strength, you are in great shape. God doesn’t provide “Deliverance” for got-it-all-together people— only those who NEED deliverance.
BEAUTY
“To behold the BEAUTY of the Lord.” (v.4) We will delve more into this verse in a moment, but the definition alone of Beauty tells us so much. The Hebrew word is NOAM, and it also means “pleasantness, delightfulness, agreeableness, splendor, and delight.” This same God who is our Light, our Salvation, and our Strength is pleasant, agreeable, delightful, and full of splendor. I frequently quote AW Tozer’s “What you THINK about God is the most important thing about YOU.” That line is worth an entire post as well. What comes to your mind when contemplating God is the game-changer of all game-changers because what you limit Him to in your thoughts is generally what you will be limited to in personal experience of Him. Furthermore, it will limit and distort what you pass on to others of Him. Have you noticed people who don’t believe in God as Healer rarely experience Him as such? God as Provider? God as Holy Ghost Baptizer? God as Comforter? God as Patient? God as Kind? God as Merciful? God as Ruler of the Nations? And now here, God as Beautiful in His pleasant and delightful demeanor. If an aspect of Him doesn’t make it into your thoughts, you are unlikely to see it in your life. Let’s add God as Beautiful into our contemplation.
SEEK, DWELL, BEHOLD, INQUIRE
These are the 4 words out of verse 4 that I preached for 4 weeks on. “ONE THING I desire of the Lord, that I will SEEK; That I may DWELL in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. To BEHOLD the beauty of the Lord, and to INQUIRE in His temple.” What a verse. David’s ONE THING requires us looking at these 4 words in some detail, though a whole post on each would have been even better.
#1. SEEK. Hebrew word is BAQASH. It means, “to search out (especially in worship or prayer)”, ask, beg, desire, request, require (and the definitions goes on). The ONE THING is to put you on a journey of discovery.
#2. DWELL. Hebrew word is YASHAB. “To dwell, remain, settle, marry”. Additional words were “haunt” and “lurking”. Your ONE THING is to stalk Him until He marries you. Yes, I know easier to process if you are a woman, but I think you can all find the equivalent.
#3. BEHOLD. Hebrew word is KHAZA. “ To see, perceive, prophesy, gaze with intelligence, contemplate with pleasure.” Amazingly self-explanatory. If you want to grow in the prophetic, grow in your “beholding”. If you want to grow in hopeful and useful prophetic grow in beholding “His beauty”. Prophets who see Him first as Severe instead of Beautiful— pass that on. The lens distortion affects their entire revelatory gift.
#4. INQUIRE. Hebrew word is BAQAR. “To plow; to breakthrough in general; inspect; admire; reflect.” Such a full definition. I recommend just trying to say those 4 words in Hebrew might leave an impartation. BAQASH, YASHAB, KHAZA, BAQAR. Say that slowly three times and it even sounds like you are on a ONE THING quest for God.
IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING
“I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the GOODNESS OF GOD IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING.” (v. 13)
Is this perhaps why so much of the church seems to “have lost heart”? Is this why if you take their “Linus’ blanket” of immediate or soon “rapture” that they break out into a panic attack? Is all our hope and faith stashed in a corner called LATER? That would be proof that you had “lost heart”. The move of God we are stepping into is one that will re-awaken hearts. Awakened hearts know to expect God’s goodness, not just one day in eternity, but here and now “in the land of the living”. The Kingdom is past, PRESENT, as well as future. PRESENT means NOW. In “the land of the living.” Relishing the future Kingdom is worth doing, but if that is the space you live in, it is further proof of “having lost heart.” A by-product of the ONE THING is seeing a God of goodness IN the land of the living. That is the KHAZA of intelligent gazing. “Stalk Him” and “plow into Him” until you have breakthrough in this area. We are about to enter the most exciting period ever of Kingdom demonstration on earth. We are in a brand new era of the Kingdom Age and it is not going to stop until there are 153 sheep nations (yes, another post, but it is Biblical). This means nations that operate to the light of the sons and daughters of God (Is. 60:1-3) There is no historical point of reference for what we are accelerating into— and it is “the goodness of God in the land of the living.” Note, it is not “the goodness of God in the land of the recently departed.” It is “goodness” before “rapture”. “Rapture” is a celebration, not a rescue. The rescue is now.
REVELATION OF “THE DEVIL”?
Remember neither the Bible nor specifically its’ last book is a revelation of “the devil” (antichrist, beast, false prophet, dragon, harlot, great tribulation etc.)— God doesn’t do commercials for the devil. The Bible and Revelation is the Revelation of JESUS CHRIST and His rule. “Oh, but the preacher said…?” Yes, many preachers have been “seminary” trained to gaze at the horrors of the devil, rather than the beauty of God. What you gaze on you make room for. This is a terrible joke/truth I know, so forgive me ahead of time, but if you break down the word SEMINARY, SEMI means “half”, and NARY means “nothing”. “Half of nothing” is the effect of abandoning the ONE THING. Any seminary or deeper study of the scriptures that is not predicated on SEEK, DWELL, BEHOLD, INQUIRE will be religious gobbledygook. We already abound in that, and in that, have discovered the cause for our loss of heart for seeing God do anything truly significant in our day. Take it from someone who has been doing the ONE THING— truly significant “goodness of God” is in process as we speak. We accelerate towards Hab. 2:14.
Written by: Johnny Enlow
Featured Image by chris ganser on Unsplash
67 DAY COUNTDOWN SERIES
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The 67 Day Countdown Series is brought to you by Johnny and Elizabeth Enlow, founders of Restore7 ministry, as well as international speakers and best-selling authors. Among Johnny’s books are The Seven Mountain Prophecy, The Seven Mountain Mantle, Rainbow God, The Seven Mountain Renaissance, Becoming A Superhero, and RISE. Elizabeth serves as CEO and penned Rainbow God: The Seven Colors of Love and God in Every Season.
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