Psalm 95 is written to be declared among the congregation of the blessed and chosen ones. That’s how it makes sense. It brims with joy and thankfulness. It speaks of coming together into his presence to declare our thankfulness and joy – and expressing that overflowing gratitude with songs of praise.
Nothing strange there. Except that I just read it a couple of times in my study at home, and nothing seemed particularly inappropriate about that either.
And yet I found myself thinking – even as I was audibly declaring it – ‘this is for the gathered ones, not for solitariness’. What’s that about?
Ther good news for us in Jesus is this: whether together or apart, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Paul is so keen that we understand this that he says it twice within three chapters:
1 Corinthians 3:16
Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?
1 Corithians 6:19
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?
His context is slightly different in each passage (first about the body of Christ, then about our physical bodies) but the thought is consistent: the Holy Spirit dwells within us.
The joy we’re exhorted to express in Psalm 95 and our eagerness to declare our thankfulness to Him, don’t need to be stored up for a Sunday morning (or whenever the saints gather), they can be let loose now. I can come into His presence, becasue of Jesus and through the power of His Holy Spirit, right now. No waiting, no ritual cleansing, no interceding by a great high priest…Jesus, my great high priest, is my justification and he says ‘come’.
My encouragement to you? Don’t wait for the designated mountaintop to shout your praises, do it now. Do it continually. Let’s never give up worshipping him together becasue it’s a sweet thing (and it’s sweetness extends beyond the praises that we sing to Him), but come into his presence and declare his goodness today, now, and through the week as you catch up with your brothers and sisters in Christ.
For the Lord our God is a great God…a great King above all gods…and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of His hands.
– Simon Elliott