Where Do You Keep Your God?

Where Do You Keep Your God?

Psalm 42:1-3

Warren Keeting tells this story: "There once was a rich man who was near death. He was very grieved because he had worked so hard for his money and he wanted to be able to take it with him to heaven. So he began to pray that he might be able to take some of his wealth with him.

An angel hears his plea and appears to him. ’Sorry, but you can’t take your wealth with you.’ The man implores the angel to speak to God to see if He might bend the rules.

The man continues to pray that his wealth could follow him. The angel reappears and informs the man that God has decided to allow him to take one suitcase with him. Overjoyed, the man gathers his largest suitcase and fills it with pure gold bars and places it beside his bed.

Soon afterward the man dies and shows up at the Gates of Heaven to greet St. Peter. St. Peter seeing the suitcase says, ’Hold on, you can’t bring that in here!’

But the man explains to St. Peter that he has permission and asks him to verify his story with the Lord. Sure enough, St. Peter checks and comes back saying, ’You’re right. You are allowed one carry-on bag, but I’m supposed to check its contents before letting it through.’

St. Peter opens the suitcase to inspect the worldly items that the man found too precious to leave behind and exclaims, ’You brought pavement?!!!’"

What do you consider “precious”? Isn’t it amazing what we consider precious? What we would not let out of our sight.

David considered God to be precious.

Psalm 42:1

1 As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.

(NIV)

David knew that where God is, there is blessing. God, being present, means that God’s blessing is present. We need to quit praying for God to bless what we are doing and begin to do what God is blessing!

Where is your God?

Psalm 42:2-3

2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?

3 My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, "Where is your God?"

(NIV)

That may sound like an odd question: “Where do You keep your God?” But is it really? Can God become lost to us?

God got away from where His people were keeping him. 1 Samuel 4:10-11, 19-22 tells us of the battle and defeat of the Israelites and how God got away,

1 Samuel 4:10-11, 19-22

10 So the Philistines fought, and the Israelites were defeated and every man fled to his tent. The slaughter was very great; Israel lost thirty thousand foot soldiers.

11 The ark of God was captured, and Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died.

19 His daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant and near the time of delivery. When she heard the news that the ark of God had been captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she went into labor and gave birth, but was overcome by her labor pains.

20 As she was dying, the women attending her said, "Don’t despair; you have given birth to a son." But she did not respond or pay any attention.

21 She named the boy Ichabod, saying, "The glory has departed from Israel"-- because of the capture of the ark of God and the deaths of her father-in-law and her husband.

22 She said, "The glory has departed from Israel,

for the ark of God has been captured."

(NIV)

The loss of the ark meant that God’s presence, His glory, was gone.

The ark was a boxlike object that was the center of the worship for Israel, both in the tabernacle and later in the temple. It was enshrined in the Holy of Holies. Only the High Priest could minister before the ark and that only one time a year. Where the ark was, God was. The Phillistines didn’t keep the ark for long – there was power in the ark because God’s presence was with the ark. Yet although the ark was returned, yet it was not returned to it’s proper place, the Tabernacle. For more than forty years, the ark was kept at the house of a man named Abinadab.

When David became King over all Israel, he was troubled that God was not in His proper place. God could not bless His people without being present. The ark being in the house of Abinadab meant God was being kept at arm’s length from the people of Israel.

Where do you keep your God? Is God involved in the daily of your life or just on Sunday? Not only do you know where you keep your God but others recognize it when God gets away: