“I will confirm him in my house and in my kingdom forever, and his throne shall be established forever.” 1 Chronicles 17:14
When David found his rest, in his own house, in the City of David, Jerusalem, he realised that the same was not true for the Ark of the Covenant, the place where the presence of the LORD was to be focused. So David determined to build a house for the presence of the LORD to rest. The LORD’s answer to David was twofold. First, “I don’t need a house, I’ve never asked for a house, and when I choose for a house to be built I will command.” But, secondly, the LORD promises to build David a house (1 Chronicles 17:10). Now, David had just built his house in Jerusalem, so that can’t be what God is referring to when he makes this promise to David.
God promises to build a house for David that is eternal. This is the real house, the place where God dwells among his people. David was looking at the immediate, but God was speaking of the eternal. We need always to lift our eyes from the immediate to the eternal, and see God’s bigger plans. Solomon’s great temple is nothing more than a memory now, but God’s house still endures, and will endure. This is our true hope, our real goal, our motivation for how we live now. Jesus is the great King, of the line of David, promised a millennium before Jesus was born in Bethlehem; Jesus is the great King whose throne endures forever. And rather than us building a house for him, he has built his house for us, and is even now building another home.
In chapter 14 of John’s Gospel Jesus tells his disciples very plainly that he is going to prepare that final home for us, so that, where he is, we may be too! But, for now, God has promised to be among us who believe here on earth – that is the Church, and all those who trust in Jesus as Lord and King are a part of that body, that temple in which Jesus dwells, until he comes again.
So, lift your hearts and your heads to things above, knowing that that is our true home, now in part, then in full. Live the immediate in the hope of the eternal in Christ Jesus.
