Psalms 84:4 — “Blessed are those who dwell in your house; they are ever praising you.”
Where does God dwell? Habakkuk 2:20 — “The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him.” But when Solomon dedicated the temple he said in his prayer, “But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27).
Bible students have long said, and I think rightly so, that God is omnipresent, that is, present everywhere at all times at the same time. The fact that he should choose to manifest his presence in a particular way at given location — such as in the temple — gave rise to the idea that he was right there, right then. But that didn’t preclude the fact that he was also everywhere.
King David emphasized this point when he wrote,
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” (Psalms 139:7-10 NIV)
But I would like to suggest another kind of a locality if you will. Perhaps it could be called the proximity of likeness or commonality. That is to say, the more we share a quality of character we see in God, the more we are, in a sense, dwelling with him by virtue of that. We are sharing the same space.
Consider for example this statement God makes: “For this is what the high and exalted One says — he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isaiah 57:15 NIV)
Jesus, being “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3) said, “I am gentle and humble in heart.” (Matthew 11:29). Therefore, God is gentle and humble in heart.
Little wonder, then, that he says he dwells with the “contrite and lowly in spirit.”
The principle here may be this: we will find ourselves dwelling with God within any attribute of God’s that we share. That is to say, as we act on what we know God wants us to be and do, he works in us to make us as he is which results in that proximity of likeness. In the words of Jesus, — “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23 CSB)
