God promised to come and dwell with Israel in their Temple, just as He dwelt in the Tabernacle. Solomon built a magnificent temple and, before all Israel, he offered a prayer asking God to reside there. There are many parallels between Solomon's prayer and the prayers we as believers should fervently pray daily...asking God to actively work in our own Temple (our spirit, in which God's Spirit dwells).
When Solomon concluded, the Lord said “I have heard the prayer and plea you have made before me; I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting my Name there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there. 1 Kings 9:3
Below is Solomon's invocation, paraphrased for personal daily use as we seek God's active presence in our lives. I encourage you to use it.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“Lord, the God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below—you who keep your covenant of love with me when I continue wholeheartedly in your way. You have kept your promise to your Son, Jesus, my Savior; redeeming me through faith. With your mouth you have promised and with your hand you have fulfilled it—and it is true today. Now Lord, the God of Israel, confirm, in me, the promise of your Son when he said, "I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth—for he lives with you and will be in you" (Jn 14). But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less my spirit! Yet give attention to my prayer and this plea for mercy, Lord my God. Hear the cry and the prayer that I Am praying in your presence today. May your eyes be open toward my spirit in which you dwell night and day, this place of which you said, ‘My Name shall be there,’ so that you will hear the prayer I pray from my spirit in which you dwell. Hear my concerns and of all your people when we pray from our spirits in which you dwell. Hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive.
When I am in conflict with my neighbor and we come to you, then hear from heaven and act justly toward us according to our guilt or innocence.
When I have been defeated by my sin against you and I turn back to you, give praise to your name, praying and making supplication to you from my spirit in which you dwell, then hear from heaven and forgive my sin and bring me back to peace and rest in fellowship with you.
When I hear nothing from you and there is no relief because I have sinned against you, and when I pray from my spirit in which you dwell and give praise to your name and turn from my sin because you have troubled me, then hear from heaven and forgive my sin. Teach me the right way to live, and send relief to the life you have given me.
When natural disasters or disease come to me, or when unbelievers attack me in any area of my life and I make a prayer or plea—being aware of the despair in my heart, and spreading out my hands toward you—then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Forgive and act; deal with me according to all I do, since you know my heart (for you alone know every human heart), so that I will fear you all the time and live in the peace and rest you have given me.
As for the unbelievers who do not belong to your church but have affiliated with us because of your name—for they will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm—when they come and pray from their spirits then hear from heaven, your dwelling place. Do whatever the unbeliever asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as does your church, and may know that the Body of Christ bears your Name.
When I am in conflict with unbelievers, wherever I am, and when I pray to the Lord from my spirit in which you dwell, then hear from heaven my prayer and and plea, and uphold my cause.
When I sin against you—for there is no one who does not sin—and you become angry with me and give me over to unbelievers, and if I have a change of heart and repent and plead with you, ‘I have sinned, I have done wrong, I have acted wickedly’; and if I turn back to you with all my heart and soul and pray to you from my spirit in which you dwell, hear my prayer and my plea, and uphold my cause. And forgive me; forgive all the offenses I have committed against you, and cause unbelievers to show me mercy; for I am your child and your inheritance, whom you brought out of Sin, out of that iron-smelting furnace.
May your eyes be open to my plea and to the plea of your church and may you listen to us whenever we cry out to you. For you singled us out from all the nations of the world to be your own inheritance, just as you declared through your servant Moses when you, Sovereign Lord, brought our ancestors out of Egypt.”
Praise be to the Lord, who has given me rest just as he promised. Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave through his servant Moses. May the Lord our God be with me as he was with our ancestors; may he never leave me nor forsake me. May he turn my heart to him, to walk in obedience to him and keep the commands, decrees and laws he gave my ancestors. And may these words of mine, which I have prayed before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, that he may uphold my cause and the cause of the whole Body of Christ according to each day’s need, so that all the people of the earth may know that the Lord is God and that there is no other. And may my heart be fully committed to the Lord my God, to live by his decrees and obey his commands, as at this time.”
