Isaiah 26:20

Come, my people, enter thou into thy chamber, and shut thy door about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast

The Lord was calling His people to come to a more excellent place with Him. Today the Lord once again desires His people to enter the chamber and spend private time with Him in His presence. He is calling His people to a closer walk with Him. The Lord desires that we come to a place where we can spend time with Him in His presence. It is always a beautiful thing when we all come together to pray and worship. Yet, there also needs to be time set aside that you can spend with the Lord. Real communion is to have fellowship with the Lord. During this time, we build our relationship with Him. This gives Him the chance to be able to speak to us and to deal with us on a personal level so that we may become more lively members of His body. We must always seek to enter into His presence to taste the sweetness of the Lord. As we spend time with Him, He is able to reveal Himself to us. Coming to Him in the private chamber accomplishes many things our lives. Entering into the presence of God will cause us to become humble. We could not come into His great presence without realizing how small we really are. He is high and mighty God. All power is in His hands. We are nothing without Him. For Him to love us, is indeed an amazing thing. It is a sign that a person has not been in the presence of the Lord when that person is high minded or exalts himself.

There are many misconceptions about the Lord because people do not see the need to spend time in His presence. I was at a prayer meeting one time, and a man said, “We need to find out what would make God want to spend time with us.” God created man for His own pleasure. The reason that we exist is that He desires to spend time with us. The real fact is that man has little or no time to spend with God. He is waiting for us to make time for Him. I had never called on His name when He answered and said, “Not now, I cannot be bothered.” Whenever I have called on Him, He has always been there for me.

The verse says, hide thyself. When we spend time with the Lord in His presence, we build a hedge of protection around us. The only place that we can find refuge is in the Lord. We are safe as we hide in Him, and that security stays with us. This means that the enemy may rage against us, but he cannot touch us. The enemy will not be able to get through the hedge of protection.

In Psalms 91:1-2 it says, “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust.” David found this very precious place with the Lord. He knew how to enter into the presence of God. The time that he spent praying and magnifying the Lord caused him to be able to dwell in the secret place. This was the only place that David knew he could find refuge. He knew that if he put his trust in the Lord, the Lord would deliver him. Psalms 18:17 tells us, “He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me.” Through the testimony of David’s life, we know that God did hear his cry and did preserve his life. Even when the enemy was too strong for David, the Lord kept him. This is the place that God desires for us to be in, a place where we are so in touch with His presence that we trust in Him to be our refuge and our fortress. If we find this secret place in Jesus, we will be able to believe in Him to deliver us from our enemy, even if the enemy is too strong for us. It does not matter what form the enemy takes to come against us. When God’s people have trouble trusting in the Lord, it is because they have not entered into the chamber to spend time in His presence. Therefore, they cannot believe in the Lord to take care of them, and so they trust in man. The more time spent in the presence of the Lord, the surer you become in knowing that the Lord will hear and answer you.

Psalm 18:6 says, “In my distress, I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry came before Him, even into His ears” We can know that He will hear us. The more time spent in His presence, the closer we are to Him. Then we are able to come quickly into His presence in the time of need. In Psalm 64:1 it says, “Hear my voice, O’God, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the enemy.” If we fear the enemy. It means that we do not trust that God is able to keep us. Fear causes the people of God to not be able to trust Him; therefore, they are not able to enter into the victory. We must find the secret place in His presence. As we come to Him, the enemy will not be able to hide from us what he is doing. The Lord will show us what needs to be done and strength will come to us. Only in His presence will we find peace. The fear will leave, and the victory will come.

Psalm 27:4-6 says, “One thing have I desired 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 behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion: in the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me; He shall set me up upon a rock. And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me: therefore, will I offer in His tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord.” David’s only desire was to dwell in the House of the Lord, to be in God’s presence to behold His beauty, and to inquire of Him. If this could be our only desire, what glory we would see. Many want to dwell with the Lord someday when this life is over. The Psalmist desired to live in the house of the Lord all of his life. I do not want to wait until I leave the body or until some unknown date in the future. I desire to dwell with Him in His house. I wish to stay in His incredible presence today and every day from now throughout eternity. David knew that the Lord would hide him from those that wanted to destroy him. The sixth verse says that his head was lifted up above his enemies that were around about him. This means that we can see all that the enemy is doing. They may be all around, but nothing can be hidden from us. We are high above the battle so that nothing will be able to touch us. David offered sacrifices of joy and sang songs of praise to the Lord. This is one of the most critical parts of our relationship with the Lord. No matter what we are going through, we must continue to sing praises unto the Lord. We have to let the joy of the Lord come forth and cause strength to come to us.

The presence of God will reveal to us the things He is not pleased with in our lives. In the second chapter of the book of Revelations, the Lord speaks of the seven churches. He tells the good things about each church. Then He says, “But, I have a few things against thee.” He tells them the things that He is not pleased with. He gives them warning to repent and turn from their wicked ways. Now, these were the churches that had done wonderful works for the Lord. Many of them had suffered persecution for the gospel. Yet, there were some things that they were doing that the Lord was not pleased with. He desired that they change so that they would not be lost.

Today we need to ask the Lord if He has a few things against us. We might be doing outstanding work in His name. Yet, maybe there is something within us that He is not pleased with. It is time to ask the Lord to let us know what He has against us so that we can get those things out of the way. We need to spend time in the presence of the Lord and let Him take those things out of our lives.

Why must we allow God to make the change of nature in our lives? Because these things that are in us are harmful to us, the Kingdom of God, and the kind of witness that we are to those around us. In the Old Testament God instructed the children of Israel to kill out the giants that were in the land. They did not do what God had told them to do. Instead, they left a remnant of the giants. Later, we see the children of giants rise up against Israel. In I Samuel 17, Goliath rose up against Israel and would have destroyed them if God had not raised up David and put the victory in His hands. In 2 Samuel 21:16, the giant Ishbibenob rose up and almost killed David. In 2 Samuel 21: 18-19, Saph and the brother of Goliath rose up against Israel. Then another giant rose up against Israel. In 2 Samuel 21:22 we are told, “These four were born to the giant in Gath, and fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants.” If Israel had destroyed the Giants in the beginning as God had instructed them to do, there would have been no giants to rise up against Israel.

When there are things in our lives that are not pleasing to the Lord, we must let Him take them out of the way. God wants to give us the victory over those things in our lives that would destroy us. If we do not allow this to take place in our lives, later those things will rise up and try to destroy us just like the giants. These things can seem like giants. They can appear so big and so strong that there is no way you can overcome them. These giants will try to destroy what God has done in your life. It is better to get the Giants out of the way as soon as the Lord reveals the problem. The only way we are going to win the victory is by entering into our closet and spending time in the presence of the Lord. Grab hold of the Lord and do not let go until the victory comes. Do not fight against what God desires to do. Instead, wrestle with Him to win the victory. The victory will come. Do not let anyone make you believe that you cannot overcome. Jesus overcame death, hell and the grave. He rose from the dead so that we may have life. At that time, He won the battle for us. When we accept Jesus and the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, we receive the power to overcome. We need to believe and walk in the victory that He has won for us.

In Genesis 32:24-30, Jacob wrestled with the Lord until morning. Jacob had not received what he desired. He held onto the Lord and did not let Him go until the Lord blessed him. Jacob needed a special blessing from the Lord. In the twenty-eighth verse, we see that the Lord changes his name from Jacob to Israel. Anytime the Lord makes a change in the names of people throughout the Bible, it shows a change of nature. Jacobs nature had been changed; therefore, his name was changed to Israel.

Many times, people enter into prayer because they are in need of something. Jacob went to the Lord for one thing, but what he received is what he really needed. He needed a change in his nature and the blessing of the Lord. When people enter into prayer, they often pray for a short time. When they do not receive what they prayed about, they go away accepting that this is God’s will for them. Sometimes we have to grab hold onto the Lord and not let go until the change in our nature comes. We must stay in His presence and allow Him to bring forth what is pleasing in His sight. The Bible says that Jacob wrestled with the Lord, not against the Lord. This shows us that when we come into the presence of the Lord, we should not fight against what He desires to bring forth in us. The Lord wants to bring change in our lives. We must allow those changes to take place. During the time that we are in His presence, we must wrestle with Him, not against Him. As we wrestle with Him, we join Him in the fight against those things in our lives that are not pleasing to Him. The more time that we spend in His presence, the more remarkable victory we have over the old nature, and the change takes place.

-Rebekah Rankin