In the Place of Love

Imagine yourself in a beautiful, safe place of love. It is a place you feel valued and able to do anything. You are free to be creative and to be yourself. That place of love is where God intends for you to live. My heart-felt prayer is that you know what that feels like, but experience tells me, few believe such a places exists. Many tremble with fear that such a place is an illusion.

Oh, my friend, there is such a place. Consider yourself invited to come on in!

“That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:17-19)

The longing for a place of love is part of your design.  God formed a place of love in you when you were in your mother’s womb. He created it for Himself with His own breath, just like in Genesis 2:7.  Nothing of earth—not the love of parents, not the love of a spouse or a child, not work or dreams—can fill it.

There is a pattern in Scripture that can help you “see” the place of love within you.   In the Old Testament, we read of the Tabernacle, the Israelite’s place of worship, their place to meet with God.   Did you know God spent more time describing the construction of the Tabernacle than the creation of the world?  There is a reason: the Tabernacle is a multi-faceted “type”, a word picture about great truths.  It reveals the very plan of God and incorporates deep concepts of sin, separation, repentance, grace and meeting with God.

The Tabernacle depicts Christ Himself–outwardly unseemly with goat and sheep hides, inwardly ornate and precious with gold and silver.  

The Israelites placed the Tabernacle at the center of their camp. In the innermost part of the Tabernacle was the Holy of Holies; the meeting place of God.  An ornate, heavy veil covered the opening.  Only the High Priest could enter that place, and only once a year with great ceremony and reverence, for it was the place which held the presence of God.  We are made in the image of Christ. We are body, soul and spirit. In the New Testament, we learn that now we are the Tabernacle–the spirit within us is the Holy of Holies, a place to meet with God!

Within us, in our spirit, is the place we meet with the God of love–just like the High Priest in the Tabernacle.  In the fullness of God’s time, Jesus Christ, God Himself, took on a human body of flesh. With his sacrificial death on the cross, He entered the Holy of Holies and tore the veil wide open. Now, that Most Holy Place, the presence of God, is continually available to you.  It is within you. The place of love is your spirit, the innermost part of YOU. The doorway is Jesus Christ Himself and He calls you to enter into love.

Until we enter the presence of God, who is love, through Jesus Christ, we cannot know what it is to feel love surrounding us. When we do enter, our value—and the value of every other being—shines brilliantly. Confidence and creativity are the birthright of those who dwell in the presence of God. His arms of love are open.

Will you welcome God into the place of love–the place He created for Himself within you?