Loving ourselves

‘LORD, I love the house where you live, the place where your glory dwells.’ Psalm 26.8

There is something very captivating about this sentence.  The psalmist was thinking about the temple and the wonderful sense of God’s presence that he often felt there, and he simply described how he loved it and enjoyed being there.

This verse also contains a huge challenge for us – we are now ‘the house’ where God dwells.  In 1 Corinthians 6.19, Paul speaks about us being temples of God’s Holy Spirit.  The question we need to address is this: how do we feel about the place where God has chosen to dwell?

For many of us the answer is that we do not have a very high regard for ourselves, feeling that we could do a lot better and suspecting that God is slightly embarrassed of us.  In fact, if we are honest, we may wonder why he would choose to live within us at all.  However, let’s take on board a little bit more of today’s verse.  What if the psalmist was actually catching something of what God thought about his temple?  Suppose God loved the house where he dwelt then – and suppose he still loves all the houses where he dwells now, and it is his absolute pleasure and delight to dwell within us?

Let’s hear these words as if it was one member of the Godhead speaking to another about us: ‘I love the house where you live.’  Dwell on this and believe it.

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