Living as God’s dwelling place

The worship song Better Is One Day was written by Matt Redman quite a few years ago and have been recorded by Redman, Chris Tomlin, Kutless, etc. and has become a fan favorite in a lot of contemporary churches all over the world. This song also made it into the repertoire of the church in Nuuk we visited during our recent trip to Greenland. I shared with the small group that we were gathered with while singing this song a revelation that God showed me a while ago. It’s a wonderful catchy tune and the lyrics of longing after God are powerful. But not true anymore…

The lyrics to the song are taken from Psalm 84 where David cries out to God in this way:

“How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! My soul yearn, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. (verses 1-2)…Better is one day in your courts that a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked (verse 10)”

David is desperate to spend more time in God’s dwelling place which in Old Testament/Old Covenant days was the Temple of God. The temple that David so desperately desired to build for God so they could spend more time together, but where David had to accept that God had chosen David’s son, Solomon, to be the one who were to build the Temple in Jerusalem. David longed to come in and encounter God and be in God’s dwelling place. God’s dwelling place was a place outside of David. A place he longed to travel to and spend time in. A place that didn’t belong to David, but where he longed to be welcomed as a guest. Even if he just had to stay outside in the courts, David would be excited, because he would know that at least he would be close to the presence of God.

This was David’s reality and it was the reality of all believers in the Old Testament times before the New Covenant was set in effect after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the permanent coming of the Holy Spirit. But this is not the reality of any New Covenant believers, and therefore not the reality of any of God’s children today! We don’t have to travel to Jerusalem or somewhere else to visit God’s dwelling place. We don’t need anybody to intercede on our behalf, because we fear that we are not welcome. We don’t have to be afraid that the Temple will be shut down for us, because we have committed some sin or just don’t have the right heart attitude.

The great news of the New Covenant, of the new agreement between God and his children, is that we are now God’s dwelling place! And that dwelling place sure is lovely!

1. Corinthians 3:16-17 puts this piece of truth this way: “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God’s, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are“

Wow…I am the dwelling place of God! I am God’s lovely dwelling place! I can rest in that. I don’t have to go anywhere, do anything, wear special clothes, eat special food, attend any fancy ceremonies or anything like that to approach God, because he is already inside of me. And he has declared that the dwelling place of himself is holy, and I’m that dwelling place, and therefore I am holy! I am as holy and righteous and blameless as the Temple in the Old Covenant was. God lives in me, rules in me, encounters me in me. And I can always fellowship with him, because he is right here inside of me.

Stop praying like David!

We have to stop using language from the Old Covenant and talk about it as if that is our reality today. It is not! We are no longer in the Old Covenant. If you want to read through a book that talks about the difference between the Covenants, and why David, Abraham, Moses, etc. would be jealous that they didn’t get to live in the New Covenant days, that you and I experience, go to the book of Hebrews.

We have to stop inviting God to come. He came. He is here. He is in me. You only invite somebody to come who isn’t here. He doesn’t need an invitation. He is already here.

We have to stop praying with David from Psalm 51: “Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me“. He will not take his Holy Spirit away from a true believer in the New Covenant. In the Old Testament/Covenant days the Holy Spirit came at different times as a visitor. Today he is here permanently living in each of God’s children. As Paul puts it in 1. Corinthians 6:17 “The one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with him“. Not two separate spirits. One spirit. Just one. We are one with Christ and his Spirit will never ever leave us. No matter what we do/think/feel or say he will not leave us. For David there was a real fear that the Holy Spirit would leave him. That fear is not a part of the New Covenant. Let’s appreciate this miracle and stop praying as if we were still a part of the Old Covenant.

Maybe we could change the lyrics to Better Is One Day to something like this:

“How lovely is your dwelling place O Lord almighty. For my soul longs and even faints for you. For within me you encounter me and I’m satisfied in your presence. I sing beneath the shadow of your wings.

Better is one day here with you, better is one day here with you, better is one day here with you than the reality I lived in before I came to know you

One thing I ask, and I would seek to see Your beauty, to find You inside of me and have you reveal Your beauty to me.

Better is one day here with you, better is one day here with you, better is one day here with you than the reality I lived in before I came to know you”

(I’m by no means a great song writer, so if you, dear reader, have a better New Covenant-reality-inspired version of this song, you’re very welcome to post it here!)

Here is a video with the old version of this song :

Blessings, Torben

No need for change

We’ve been singing a worship song at church that I haven’t been able to get out of my head. The line is meant as a prayer to God and goes like this: “we need Your presence to change who we are“. That line has been nagging me for weeks now. Because in fact this statement is not true. Or at least it’s not true in the way that I understand it.

It’s true for non-believers that they need God and his presence to change who they are. They are sinners. They are born sinners as descendants of the first sinner, Adam, even before they commit a single sin (Romans 5: 18-19). This is who they are. They are sinners who unfortunately are on their way to Hell, unless they surrender to God and his miracle of taking them through a re-birth where they are born again (John 3) as somebody brand new: a saint! One of God’s children! A holy person!

That is already the reality for all believers. We don’t need God’s presence to change who we are. We are already holy, blameless, righteous in God’s sight. We are new creations. The old identity (sinner) is gone, the new identity (saint) is a reality today, whether we know that and live in that wonderful piece of truth or not!

Paul in 2. Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!“

and in 2. Corinthians 6:16 “For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people“

Could we be the temple of God if there was something wrong with us? Could the holy God live in an unholy temple? Absolutely not! We are holy, pure, blameless, righteous. In fact, as Hebrews 10:14 “because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy“. We have been made perfect! That is the truth of us. The latter part of the verse talks about “being made holy”. That’s the process of sanctification. That’s the process of Christ within us starting to make real in our soul (personality, mind, emotions, will) and in our body (the five senses, our earth suit) what is already true in our spirits: we are holy and righteous, because we have received the gift of Christ’s righteousness (Romans 5:17).

Hallelujah that the job is done! There is nothing wrong with me! Let me quote the last part of Aaron Keyes’ amazing song Not Guilty Anymore where he sings about us as God’s children:

“You are spotless. You are holy. You are faultless. You are whole. You are righteous. You are blameless. You are pardoned. You are mine“.

This may sound like heresy to some. This may sound too good to be true. But it is the truth of God’s own Word!

And here a few quotes from one of my favorite books, The Rest of the Gospel, where the author Dan Stone points to the same truths I’ve been trying to explain in this blog entry:

“You are not waiting to become holy and blameless and beyond reproach (Colossians 1:22). God sees you as holy and blameless and beyond reproach before him right now. When he looks at you, he sees the nature of his son. He sees you as love. He sees you as joy. He sees you as peace. He sees you as righteous. He sees you as redeemed. He sees you as justified. He sees you as perfect. He sees you complete” (page 103)

“It is an affront to God to keep talking about how unworthy we are. It’s a statement of unbelief. “I really don’t believe what God says about me; I believe what I think about me”. We’re never going to anywhere that way. It isn’t being humble. It’s a false humility. It’s the teaching of tradition and the flesh, because it appears humble.What’s truly humble is agreeing with what God says about you. Nothing more. Nothing less. We are the righteousness of God (2. Corinthians 5:21). We don’t look it all the time. We don’t feel it all the time. We don’t think it all the time. But we are” (page 104)

Torben – who realizes that we need God to change us more into who we already are, but I can’t accept the sentence that we need to be fundamentally changed as children of God. That change already took place!

When God sings a song

Yesterday some friends and I were talking about being honest when you blog. I attempt to do that. I try to present the truth about what’s going on in my life as honest as I feel it’s appropriate for others to read. I don’t publish my personal journal on this blog site. That wouldn’t be helpful for anybody. And some might be scared if they saw the brutal honesty of my relationship with God…I know he doesn’t mind though!

But for this blog site to be meaningful to me I want to be honest. There is no point in pretending, and I try to be honest when I’m going through hard times, and it’s hard to hold on to the truths I know about God and who I am in him. Blog entries such as this and this point to that type of honesty. I have seen in my life though, that at times it’s actually easier for me to be really honest when things are not going the way I want them to, than it is when things are going “my way”. I want to learn more about being honest about the whole truth – both the good, the bad and the ugly! I meet many people who are either really good at just sharing things they are sad, angry and depressed about or other people again seem to think that it’s best to present a version of the truth where everything is always going great. None of these alternatives are honest, and I want to be a person who shares the truth no matter whether it’s sunshine or a grey, rainy day.

This morning I sent an email out to my fellow interns from my internship with Grace Ministries International (GMI). And based on their very excited responses the thought hit me that maybe I should share some of what I wrote to my friends there with you as well, dear blog reader. So here we go:

Actually I’m quite excited about life. January 1st 2008 God woke me up with a song in my mind. It was a song based on Jeremiah 29:11 where God promises that he has good plans for us and for me, and that he’s excited to reveal them. That was my verse for 2008, and it gave me great comfort in the midst of all the hoops and challenges we had to jump through to end up here in Marietta. A week ago on January 1st, 2009, I was excited to see if God would reveal a song to me. And lo and behold he actually did. It was the weirdest thing, since the song he gave me was a song I had definitely not heard for at least 10 years. It was a Danish pop-song from the 80’s, and all I could remember from the song, and I’m sure all God wanted me to know was the beginning line: “Oh, how I love you!” (“Åh, hvor jeg dog elsker dig!”). That was how he wanted me to start 2009! Quite exciting stuff

And right now it does feel like we’re in the midst of many, many blessings from God. My old, melancholy self is quite overwhelmed, but I’m enjoying the ride, and enjoying God showing off. I’m often reminded of the way Scott Brittin, President of Grace Ministries International, often prays where he says: “we boast in you, Lord”. And that’s what I do these days! I boast in the Lord. We were singing the song Blessed Be Your Name in church this past Sunday, and I was delighted to realize that these past few years I have learned a lot about praising God both when “life is all as it should be” and when I’m “on the road marked with suffering”.

So how is God showing off in our lives these days? He has given me the chance to participate in a wonderful ministry with GMI! He has given us a trip to Greenland next summer to visit a crazy, but cool supporter of ours who have invited us up to visit him in Greenland – he pays the whole thing, or as he put it: “the money is the Lord’s, but for practical reasons it’ll come out of my bank account”! He has started opening up some very good and meaningful relationships in our church! He has blessed us with a number of financial gifts these last months, so we’re doing very well financially in a day and age where all news is about how the economy is collapsing! He is blessing us with growing relationships with some of our family members – it’s great to be able to share the wonderful truths of grace, and life in Christ with family members who actually want to know! He has given us our car that I thank him for every day! He has given us a wonderful place to stay and our good health!

And we could go on and on….we’re very blessed to have each other and we continue to enjoy learning the new dance of grace together! Jeannette will be doing the Tuesday night internship at GMI, and we’re very excited to see what God has for her doing those evenings of listening to wonderful truths!

I feel unworthy to receive everything I feel we receive, but apparently God is just in a show off mood for that one reason: “Oh, how he loves me!”

(You may want to save this blog entry in a special folder, it’s not too often you read such a happy clappy blog from me )

Blessings to all of you!

Love, Torben

Three new year’s songs

As I have been reflecting on the year of 2008 which took us from Ukraine to the United States, God has used three songs from Casting Crowns’ album The Altar And The Door to speak to me. I have been singing the song Prayer For A Friend many, many times this year. It’s been hard to see different loved ones making choices that take them away from the best God has for them. But this song has been meaningful to me in those times of feeling sad. It speaks in simple words about the heartache of seeing friends go down paths that don’t lead to life, and it speaks of the truth that all I can do when that happens is to lift my friends up to God, as I hope they do when they see me making poor choices in my life. 

Another song that has been powerful to me these last weeks is the song Somewhere In The Middle. It speaks about real life for most of us. The struggle between the safety of mediocrity and the risky business of total abandonment to God. The lyrics are simple, but the questions posed in the song are real and thought provoking – “just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender without losing all control?“, and the answer to that question is that you have to lose all control in order to live a life of surrender. It’s scary, but great stuff to follow God 100%, and often we are caught in the middle

And finally a powerful and simple worship song titled I Know You’re There. No matter how many times I’m caught in the middle, and no matter how many tears I cry over my own mediocrity and lukewarmness, God is there. He is listening. He is real. He was the only hope for me and everybody else in 2008, and he will remain the same life giving God in 2009. He is the one I have chosen to put all my trust, faith and hope in, and I know he’ll never let me down.

Thus ends this year of blog entries. 101 blog entries in 2008 since I launched www.abrokencup.wordpress.com back in Janury. I hope you, dear reader, have been blessed by these blog entries. I have enjoyed writing them. It’s an important part of me processing my life, and on top of that it’s just plain old fun!

Happy new year! See you in 2009!

Blessings, Torben – who loves youtube!

Man of no reputation

One of my all-time favorite songs is a song written by Rick Elias and performed by the Ragamuffin Band on the amazing cd The Jesus Record that was recorded as a tribute to the late Rich Mullins.  If I had to pick my top 5 cd’s. This one would definitely make the cut. Unfortunately I can’t find the song on youtube, but here are the lyrics for it: 

It was said this man was of no reputation

Yet He could stop the rising storm

With a gesture of His hand

But He chose to use His hands to heal

Hearts of darkness hearts of stone

Just like mine would be revealed 


 

He was a man of no reputation

And by the wise considered a fool

When He spoke about faith and forgiveness

In a time when the strongest arms ruled 


 

But this man of no reputation 


Loved the weak with relentless affection 


And He loved all those poor in spirit just as they were 


He was a man of no reputation 



 

It was said this man brought only confusion 


That He’d achieve his ends by any means 


And the truth that it brings revolution 


And for once they were right 


The truth set us free 


 

The hearts of the captive were his only concern 


And the powerful knew their days were ending 



 

He was a man of no reputation 


And by the wise considered a fool 


When He spoke about faith and forgiveness 


In a time when the strongest arms ruled 



But this man of no reputation 


Loved the weak with relentless affection 


And He loved all those poor in spirit just as they were 


He was a man of no reputation 



 

One day soon the gates of heaven will open wide 


And the Prince of Peace will come back for His bride 


But for now we live on these streets 


Forbidding and tough 



Where push always comes to shove 


And it’s said love’s never enough 


Where a prophet in rags gives hope to a fearful world 


No injustice no heart of darkness 


Will keep this voice from being heard 



 

He was a man of no reputation 


And by the wise considered a fool 


When He spoke about faith and forgiveness 


In a time when the strongest arms ruled 



But this man of no reputation 


Loves us all with relentless affection 


And He loves all those poor in spirit come as you are 


To the man of no reputation

 The song often brings tears to my eyes, and makes me rethink my life. Am I willing to, like Jesus, be a man of no reputation? Am I willing to walk away from fame, prestige, security, admiration, etc. and choose the road less traveled and walk with the Man of No Reputation no matter where he leads me? The road of brokenness, the road of poverty in the spirit, the road of abundant and fulfilling life with Christ – is that my road in life?
Torben – if somebody can find a link to a place where people can hear this wonderful song, I would definitely appreciate it.