Meet Him at the Door

“This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation... And there I will meet with the children of Israel." Exodus 29:42, 43

Where has God promised to meet His people? At the door. Before they enter. The worship of God does not begin inside the house of God but before it. It’s reflective of the outer court’s Holy Laver, or Christ’s washing of the disciples’ feet. The LORD is saying that a world-dusted heart will better see God's glory in the congregation once it’s been cleansed. The people of Israel were to find Jehovah at the threshold, then in the Holy Place. See the order? For anything to have its proper effect,

the morning sacrifice,

light for the evening incense,

a spirit of prayer…

a heart of repentance becomes the prepared soil, before we enter.

If we desire to have any deeper communion with God, any brighter light of His countenance, any fuller joy in His presence; if we desire hearts of contrition to be more manifest and the burden of sin to roll farther away, it must not happen in the pew, but in the parking lot (so to speak). Is it any wonder we often sit in the congregation and whisper, "Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself"? But a Voice comes back to our hearts, "Why didn’t you meet Me at the door?” Finding Him before we enter lays the groundwork for finding Him during and after. Then we will leave saying, "Surely the Lord was in this place."

It is not too late for us to learn this lesson. Dear one, in our busy world, let’s determine to meet with Him at the door in preparation for this coming Lord’s Day. May it never be said that our first honest and self-reflective thoughts of Christ came at the call to worship. That our first notes of praise were in the first line of the Psalter. That our first confessions of guilt were when the law was read, and our first communion with God, when the preaching had concluded. The weekly sacrifices of praise must not begin with the votem and end with the benediction…but long before. True acceptable worship does not begin when we sit down or end when we rise, but at the door. Meet Him at the door.