Ian Heard - Grace at Ha Makon

Psalm 26:8; Psalm 27; Psalm 91; Hebrew 4:16
The fallen-world system can only offer uncertainty and chaos. It can assure nothing. Everywhere, people try to mitigate uncertainty by placing faith in superannuation, the stock market, investments, medicine, alliances, formulas. Millions of dollars go into prognostication, yet fear, depression, paranoia and stress abound. These are in fact, disorder! If that environment becomes ‘home’ to us , we will speak, work and live from that centre. We will live and speak uncertainty, doubt and fear, even though a different and superior place is available; a place of security, out of which we can live and speak certainty, grace and faith. It’s not God’s intention for us to live from disorder. He is righteous—meaning everything in his realm (kingdom) is in right order and alignment—and, if we know him, he bestows on us his righteousness (government of right order… ‘I bestow on you a kingdom’ Lk. 22:29) , intending us to live out of the same place as he! Here’s a typical description of where it’s possible for me to live (typical because these descriptions occur again and again in God’s word!). This place (see Psalm 91) provides for us...

*Deliverance from traps deliberately set to bring me to harm and from plagues of mischief. * Protection as a hen protects its chicks; ‘You can’t hurt them without hurting me’! *Absolute Truth shielding me.
*Freedom from fear...the dreads that night awakenings can bring or the danger of attack in the light of day. *Angels taking charge over me, to watch, protect and deliver. *Authority over that which would either eat me or poison me (lion and cobra). *Answered prayer, assurance of salvation and length of days! (What’s not to like!?)
Is this where I want to live? How does it become reality? Who gets this? Those who learn to live where David lived. This is the ‘come what may’ place! The, ‘though the fig tree does not blossom….yet will I rejoice in the Lord’ place of Habakkuk 3: THIS IS…

THE SECRET PLACE: (Psalm 91:1 and 26:5 ) David knew about the ‘secret place’, HaMakom (The Place) where God settled among his people. In the tent, among them, yet hidden. He lived then, and now, in hidden accessibility. The people could not enter the most holy place; only their representative could go there, once a year, taking the blood! That meant that faith was required to draw near—a heart response. God still lives in this ‘hidden accessibility’ but the difference now is that the veil has been torn away and all may enter into the Presence freely, but it’s still by faith because it’s a heavenly room; the heavenly holy of holies! Still the Secret Place—but we’ve been allowed (indeed, invited) in—it’s by the blood of Jesus! Our High Priest now takes us in for we are in him! This is our HaMakom, from which we are to live!

THE PRESENCE PLACE: the word translated ‘dwells’ in Psalm 26:8 and ‘dwell’ in Ex. 25:8 is from the Hebrew SHAKAN from which the word ‘shekinah’ (a Rabbinic word not in the Bible) is derived. It describes where His presence and its glory settles! They had to believe he was in there….above the mercy seat, between the wings of the cherubim, just as he said he’d be—THERE…for them and with them! (‘Have them make me a sacred place [miqdash—sanctuary] that I may dwell [settle] in amongst them’ Exodus 25:8). This was what made them a distinctive people. We, no matter where we are physically, can be in the Presence. Paul was there on a sinking ship with 200 unbelievers, assuring them and instructing them. He and Silas were there in a Philippian jail. No matter our physical location…we can be at HaMakom. This is what made it, for David—

THE BELOVED Place: David said, ‘LORD, I have loved the habitation of your house, HaMakom where your glory dwells’ (Psalm 26:8). David’s heart was always there. Wherever he went his heart was connected by a cord to the Locus of his life; into battle, among liars and cheats, facing Goliaths and dealing with Sauls. Like the sons of Korah (Psalm 84:5-6) he could say, ‘blessed is the man whose strength is in you; in whose heart are the highways to Zion’—that is, those who, even though separated physically, make pilgrimage in their hearts into God’s presence in Zion. For such people, says the Psalm, ‘as they pass through the Valley of Weeping they make it a place of springs’!

THE PRIORITY PLACE: For David, HaMakom was the priority in his life. He said, ‘one thing have I desired of the Lord (Yahweh), that will I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord….’ This was David’s first desire; the one nothing else could supplant. It’s why God described David as a man ‘after my own heart’ (1 Samuel 13:14 & Acts 13:22). David said, ‘I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved’ (Psalm 16:8). By faith, wherever he went, he was dwelling there! (And this, under an inferior covenant!)

THE MEETING PLACE: God’s heart and David’s heart met at HaMakom. It was where David’s desires became one with God’s so they flowed together…the place of answered prayer! He wrote, ‘when you said, “seek my face” my heart said, “your face Lord will I seek.” Jesus said, ‘if you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will and it shall be done for you’ (John 15:7). The meeting place is where our will becomes subsumed in his and his desires become ours and ours, his. God’s heart is that we seek his face. He has provided a place where this can occur. He longs to meet with us.

THE SECURE PLACE: ‘In the day of adversity He shall hide me (as treasure) in his hiding place (den), in the secret place of his tent he shall hide me.’ It was where David found utmost safety. Here was a security nothing in the world could provide; not David’s armies and valiant men; not fortresses and palaces; not wealth or power or success. This is not escapism, but the place from which to function in total security!

THE EXALTING PLACE: ‘And now my head shall be exalted above my enemies all
around me’; being properly in the Presence and living from there, guarantees that God is taking care of those spiritual (or physical) enemies against us. Why is this? Because if we will humble ourselves in his presence, he will exalt us. Peter wrote ‘humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God (that in due season he may exalt you), casting all your care on him.’ We humble ourselves by casting ALL our care on him! And from that place THE PLACE, he is then able to exalt us.

His grace for me, for us, flows at HaMakom, THE PLACE. As soon as I allow my heart to go to another ‘place’ there’s a sense in which I’m on my own, becoming independent. THE PLACE is where he calls us to live from and to live out our days.
‘Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need’ (Heb 4:16)

Ian Heard - Sept. 2/2018 www.until-we-see.com