Daily Devotional with Dr. Duane Brooks
August 6, 2018
2 Chronicles 7:1-3
When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.  The priests could not enter the temple of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled it.  When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the Lord above the temple, they knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave thanks to the Lord, saying,“He is good; his love endures forever.”
New International Version (NIV)
                God responds to prayer!   After Solomon prayed, the fire fell.  John’s portrait of worship in heaven in the book of Revelation reveals that God holds the prayers of his people in a bowl and that the angel flings the fire at the earth in response to prayer.  Granted, Revelation is an apocalyptic portrait.  We would not say every lightning bolt is the manifestation of a prayer.  Still, in Solomon’s day the fire fell after he prayed.

                Best of all God filled the temple so full with his glory that no one else could enter the room.  In the New Testament at Pentecost, God fills the house and his people with his Spirit.  What would we do if God showed up at church?  Annie Dillard ponders this thought:  “Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.”

               What if we expected God’s manifest presence every time we worship.  How would we respond?  How did the worshipers in Solomon’s day respond to God’s presence?  They all fell down faces to the ground.  This reminds us of John’s vision of the elders and living creatures falling down before God in heaven.  At the dedication of the Temple, too, people sang about God’s goodness, his faithful love enduring forever.  Let’s take our cue from them.  Reverently, let us approach God with reverence and gratitude for his goodness and love.  
Pray with me:  
Pray with me the words of A. W. Tozer:  “O God, we have tasted your goodness, and it has both satisfied us and made us thirsty for more. We are painfully conscious of our need for further grace. We are ashamed of our lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, we want to want You; we long to be filled with longing; we thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show us your glory, we pray, so that we may know You indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within us. Say to our souls, ‘Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away.’ Then give us grace to rise and follow You up from this misty lowland where we have wandered so long.”  In Jesus’ name.  Amen. 
  This year we focus our Every Day with Jesus readings on Jesus’ story.  With references to Tallowood's Read Through the Bible in 2018 daily reading plan, let's focus our undivided attention on Jesus and follow where he lead. He will not fail. Neither will we!
  Joyfully, 
  Duane 
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