David’s conversation with God about His House is a great encouragement for its readers throughout the ages and points to that amazing quality of our God to do more than we can ever ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20) – the absolute opposite of the man giving his boy a scorpion when he asked for an egg (Luke 11:12).  David says to God ‘I want to build you a house’ and God’s reply is, ‘No, I’m going to build YOU a house!  The house and lineage of David are going to last forever and ever’. And neither the writer of Chronicles, wanting to encourage the remnant building the little temple in the ruins of Jerusalem or the original writer of Samuel could have guessed what that meant in the way that we have been enabled to understand it today.  This passage is about the promise of Jesus: ‘Son of David’.

Out of what almost seems like a mistake, arrogance on David’s part to think that he could provide a fitting physical dwelling place for God, God reveals the amazing PLAN that is still celebrated in HEAVEN today as in Revelation 21:3 ‘Now the dwelling place of God is with men (and women) and He will live with them’.  God promises to make a way where there isn’t a way and to use simple, sinful people to bring about the understanding of who He is and to establish them as His people, His ‘house’. And ultimately an extension of this is the building of His Church!

Chronicles over and again emphasises not the amazing qualities of humans, but the GRACE of God.  The group of returning exiles are humbled and acutely aware of being in the age beyond the golden age of David. Instead, like the children of Israel in Egypt, they are making bricks and labouring at building work, but this account enables them to see beyond their reality into the promise of what God had said to David and understand they were continuing to be part of God’s house as the people of Israel. The promise never stops; the covenant can never be broken on God’s part. The establishment of David’s throne ‘forever’ continues to encourage and inspire us all because it goes beyond any difficulties of ‘now’ and focuses our eyes on Jesus and the Kingdom that cannot be shaken

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Listen to: ‘You are the only King Forever’ (Elevation Worship).

‘Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.’ Hebrews 12:28-29

Thank you, Jesus that You dwell with us and in us through Your wonderful Holy Spirit. Amen