God gave me an illustration of this once. Imagine walking into a small, efficient apartment flat. It was designed with an open concept with modern furnishings. You step in and see the kitchen. Moving forward, there’s the living room, the desk and the bedroom around the corner. The shades are drawn, so it’s dark in this room. You turn on a lamp of warm light, but it is not a natural light. Then to your left, you see a staircase. As you begin to take the flight, it begins to get brighter.
On the second level, to your surprise, you see the exact same layout of the apartment you were just in. But now, you’ve entered from the living room since you are at top of the stairs. Across the room is the kitchen. You see the same layout: the desk and then the bedroom. Starkly contrasted to the identical lower level, this apartment room is bright, full of natural light from the open windows blowing in cool, fresh air. There is nothing stale here. You see the freshly cut flowers sitting in a clear glass vase on the coffee table. I hear music infusing the air and saturating the room with PEACE… HOPE… JOY... and LOVE. Jesus lives on this level and He just walked in. Here you get to enjoy His company, His companionship, His friendship.Psalm 27:4 says:
One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire/meditate in his temple.
Here, the first verb shows that the psalmist has asked for something in the past. And then you see that he will continually seek after this same one thing. Combining these verb thoughts, this one thing is his lifelong pursuit.* Dwelling in his Lord’s house everyday is the psalmist’s singular desire. Why? so that he might be close to Him and gaze upon His beauty.
Can you see Jesus’ beauty? Every day, each moment, Jesus wants for us to live out of a different dimension. Seeing His beauty in an ever increasing manner is God’s will for us. Oh, how I want to grow in seeing His beauty more than I do. Instead, I forget about Him and constantly have to return. I know this is normal, but I want God to help me rewrite my normal and to grow in sustained living in His constant Presence.
In the truest reality, Jesus IS beautiful. There a false covering over us that keeps us from constantly seeing His beauty. Let’s abandon living downstairs and live upstairs. God wants each of us to live daily in His house, to see His beauty and to enjoy His companionship. In Psalm 90:1, there is a shift from the place where the psalmist writes from in Psalm 27:4.
A Prayer of Moses, the man of God. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:1-2 ESV)
The earlier psalm is a cry to dwell in God’s house. The latter psalm shows that the psalmist sees that Godhas been their dwelling place all along and God will continue to be this for them for generations. There is also another shift from the concept of house between the two psalms: from wanting to dwell in God’s house, to seeing that God Himself has been their very dwelling place.
I was just taught this week by my husband that the Hebrew word for beauty here is the same word used in Ps 90:17, translated favor. Words have a range of meaning and so translators have this range to work with when translating into another language. I was blown away when he told me that the range of meaning for the Hebrew word beauty here includes friendliness. The psalmist wants to gaze upon the friendliness of the Lord.
Have you ever seen God in the Old Testament as desiring friendship? While we see that in the New Testament when Jesus said that He no longer calls us servants, but friends, God hasn’t changed (see Hosea 2). It’s that covering again, masking reality from us. Jesus and the Father are made of the same substance. Here in Psalm 27, God’s friendship is sought after by the psalmist. James 2:23 says that “’Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’—and he was called a friend of God.” The psalmist knows that this is possible and says to God that he wants this one thing. His singular aim as he dwells with God is to gaze upon His friendliness, His beauty! God, I too want to seek Your friendship every day! James teaches us that the key is believing God.
By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. (Hebrews 11:5-6 ESV)
Since Christ has made us the very children of God, destroying the enmity between us and God, we are no longer enemies of God, ever again. We are His delight. We are His beloved children, called to live life with Him. There are times that we choose to go down the stairs and live on the lower level, but that is not our home; this is not His good will for us. We are upstairs children. He calls us to abandon the life we have lived without Him. He beckons us to be in His Presence at all times—we do this by choosing to live upstairs with Him, to believe Him at His Word like Abraham, like Enoch, like Moses…like Jesus!
When we choose to live on the lower level (maybe not all the time, but in different areas of our lives), He walks downstairs with us because He never leaves us and will never forsake us. But His will for us is to get tired of living in the dark and all that goes with it. He wants us to see that He extends hope and wants more for us. He waits for us to press in. He says, “Let’s get out of here. Let’s go upstairs. There’s so much more that I have planned for you.”
Each of us have different areas of darkness that we hold onto in our lives. I can think of several in my life where I feel paralyzed to move. A friend recently told me, “I have built a prison for myself, and I want to be free.” Some of our areas of darkness are more obvious than others, but they are made of the same stuff. They are habits that bind us. They are fears by which we are oppressed and live in agreement. They are areas where we haven’t asked Jesus to touch and remove. They have yet to have the Word of God infuse life. There are ties that bind us to live in the dark. Maybe the familiarity of our broken habits or our pain are comforting in a twisted way. Maybe our inattention to these areas of our lives have formed in us a habit to ignore them. Maybe we don’t know that there is another way to live. Maybe we feel we are so broken that there is no hope (even in writing that sentence, I smell the lies of the enemy, who is all about deception.) Maybe we have yet to believe that God has power to transform these areas of our lives. On these and every area of our lives, the Holy Spirit wants to breathe. As we confront each of these areas with Him, He can bring beauty from ashes, life where there has been death. Then we can learn the upward climb out of darkness, letting Jesus carry us and bear our burdens so that we can live upstairs.
Can there be anything, any area, too difficult for God in your life? Certainly the answer is no. He is God. I want to learn what it means to stay upstairs and to abandon the idea of ever living on the lower level. Lord, show me the areas into which I still need to bring to You. Oh Jesus, give me courage to confront these areas of my life.
Upstairs children--that is what we were made to be.
*This thought came from a wonderful German commentary from a 100 years ago. My husband loved it because this resource is both technical, careful with the details, and yet devotional and worshipful! Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament. Here is a link…