03/15/2023
In 2000, a dear friend, my mentor, Karen Cosio, gave me a book that would send me on a journey to the throne room of God. In a short few months we went from the silliness of youth ministry to abandoned worship of Jesus. It ruined me for the ordinary.
The book was called, “God’s Favorite House”. What it did for me was open my eyes to the fact that we need intimacy with the Father. It turned self seeking worship in to a meeting with Jesus. Face to face. And for a very short time we, dare I say, facilitated a move of God that was so beautiful, that not one of us in youth leadership, would ever dream of taking credit for it.
It began with the worship team, 12 to 18 years old, showing up a whole hour before practice and getting before God for an hour. Admittedly, some of them would nap, including myself, but we were faithful.
After a short while, the worship changed. It went from singing songs that were fun and well known to singing songs as if God himself were sitting there listening. We went from singing to 40-60 youth to singing to the one seated on the throne.
We were in the Throne Zone.
We had times of refreshing, deep un-coerced repentance and deliverance. It was beautiful. God was on the move. He was the only Star.
I’d like to share an excerpt from the book that ruined me. Maybe I can encourage you to be ruined too.
What’s the worst that can happen?
Building a Mercy Seat
- Not a Judgment Seat-
Tommy Tenney “God’s Favorite House”
Some have been blessed with a visitation of God's presence and some have not, but all of us want more of Him. We welcome God's visitation, but our real desire is for habitation, where His presence lingers and lives with us every day. What can we do to make Him feel welcome all the time instead of just some of the time? We know that His will is for His permanent presence to bless our cities and nations, but how do we get Him to stay?
God spoke to me about this through a good friend of mine who has an apparent genetic disorder.
This disorder causes him to be grotesquely obese. He can't be more than 5 feet 8 inches tall, but he seems to be literally as big around as he is tall. I've been told that when he was 12 years old he already weighed 300 pounds. He has struggled with weight all his life.
I remember times when we sat down together and he would start to weep, saying, "I know people laugh at me." This man has a strong anointing on his life, and he is one of the true apostles in the Body of Christ. God taught me something from an insight this man shared with me. I want to share it with you.
My friend is so heavy that it inhibits him socially. He told me, "I have very close friends who would love for me to come visit them. We regularly spend time together in restaurants, but I would love to just sit down in the intimacy of their homes and fellowship with them.
Yet, I can't." He began to weep and big tears ran down his chubby cheeks. The next thing my dear friend said would change my view of
"church" forever.
"Tommy, when I drop by their homes," he said, "I will stand at the foyer with my hat and coat on the whole time [it's usually cold in the northern region where my friend lives]. I never take them off until I scan the room. I've been there be-fore." Then he looked at me again and said, "I've made my mind up. I've broken my last chair. I refuse to sit in a seat that looks as if it won't bear my weight. I won't be embarrassed anymore. I just won't visit if I have to do that. So I scan the room from the doorway."
"I hear my friends telling me in all earnestness and sincerity, 'Come in, sit with us, drink some coffee, " he said. "The whole time I'm talking to them, I'm scanning their living room and kitchen to see if they have added any furniture this time that will hold my weight. I knew that there was nothing there during my previous visit."
With a sigh, my friend said,
"Those visits often end in sadness because I have to make the excuse,'Well, I need to go on, I can't stay.The truth is that I'm only leaving because there is no furniture in their house that can hold me" He told me with tears in his eyes, "I usually get in my car and just weep.
I go back again some time later in hopes that I will find something to sit on," he said. "You would think people would look at me and know I can't just sit anywhere."
In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word translated as "glory" is kabod. It literally means weighti-ness or weighty splendor.I In a sense, God has the same problem as my friend. I wonder how many times the "weighty glory" of God has visited us but not come in? How often does He stand at the back door of our assemblies with His glory still hidden by His "hat and coat" while He scans the room?
We stop to count our spiritual goose bumps because we feel a cool breeze enter the room when the heavenly door opens. We tell one another, "Oh, God is here! He's visiting us again." Our singers rejoice and the band picks up the pace, but all too quickly it escapes us because we don't have what He is looking for. Most who have experienced visitations ask the question, "Why won't He stay? We begged Him to stay. Why can't we keep these moments?"
The answer is very simple: We haven't built a mercy seat to hold the glory of God. There is no place for Him to sit! What is comfortable to you and I is not comfortable to the kabod, the weightiness of God. We are happy to sit in our comfortable spiritual recliners all day, but the seat of God, the mercy seat, is a little different. It is the only seat on earth that can bear the weight of His glory and compel Him to come in and stay.
God is looking for a church that has learned how to build a mercy seat for His glory. When He finds a house that has paid the price to build Him a resting place, He will come and He will stay. That is when we will see a revival that is unlike any we have ever seen before. I am convinced that we don't even have a word for it. This kind of revival can only come when God comes in His weighty glory and takes His seat of honor in His house-to stay.
