The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, “The people of Israel shall camp each by his own standard, with the banners of their fathers’ houses. They shall camp facing the tent of meeting on every side.”
– Numbers 2:1–2
I love this picture here in Numbers 2:1–2. Just imagine it, you’re traveling as the people of God together, and you set up camp at certain points. And whenever you set up camp, the command from God is to set up your camp with your clan, with your family, everybody though is facing the tent of meeting. So this is the place at this point where Moses would go in to meet with God and intercede on behalf of the people. So it was basically symbolic of the presence of God in the middle of his people. And everything in the camp was designed to center on the tent of meeting. To center on the presence of God in the middle of his people.
May every part of our lives revolve around the presence and glory of God. Lord, help us to live with our eyes fixed on You.
This Verse Calls Us to Center Ourselves in God
So I read this picture in the Old Testament and I just think, “I want that to be true in my life today.” Thankfully there’s not a tent of meeting, there’s not even in a temple where the glory of God’s presence dwells in the middle of his people. The New Testament tells us very clearly that Jesus has died on the cross. He has made the way possible for us to all experience the presence of God. That we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. And so, knowing that, I’m just compelled to pray that God would center everything in my life, in my family, in the church, in your life, your family, your church, around his presence. That everything would revolve around his presence and his glory in the middle of our lives.
Numbers 2:1–2 Thanks God for the Power of His Presence
So, we pray that today, God, center us around you. May you never be just a part of our life on the side. May it never be that we simply give lip service to you once a week on a Sunday, or at this time during the day, and we kind of move on with our lives centered around ourselves or centered around the ways of this world, or centered around our work, or centered around all kinds of things that we are tempted to center around.
God, help us to center around you. May you be central in our life, our focus constantly on you. God, I pray for that in my life today, for the others who are listening to this, that today in work, in family, in play, in rest, in all the things that we might do today, keep our eyes fixed on you, we pray, in tune with your presence, focused on your glory in everything we do. We want you to be the center.
So in our lives and our families and God, may it be so in your church, in the churches that we are part of. Be the center. Keep us from getting busy doing all sorts of things and not centering on your glory and the power of your presence in our midst. Fix our attention and our affection constantly on you, we pray, as the center of everything in our lives. May everything we do revolve around you, your glory, today we pray. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
