WHOSE TABLE?

I wonder what kind of table you have in your home? Is it round, square, or rectangular? Is it old or new? It doesn’t really matter what it looks like. The real question we have to ask ourselves is: who does our table belong to? Is it my table? Or is it the Lord’s table?

If God dwells in our home, it will be God’s table.

Did you know that God loves to have a table? In the Old Testament He says: “They shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to MY TABLE to minister unto me” (Ezekiel 44:16). Everything changes when you understand your table belongs to God. It changes how you conduct your meals. It changes what you do at your table. We understand that the table is not only a place to eat some food, but a place where we feed our children body, soul, and spirit. We feed their bodies, but God is present to feed their souls and spirits.

We notice four wonderful things about your table which belongs to God.

1. God reminds us to “enter into my sanctuary.” We cannot taste the delights of God’s table unless we come to the table. Oh how many hours of delights families miss together because life’s programs stop them from sitting at the table together. So many of our activities happen around the evening meal time. They may be good, but they deprive us from the best.

We have to come to the table. We have to enter into His sanctuary. We have to understand that our table is a sacred place because it is God’s table. When we understand it is God’s table, we won’t want to miss being at the table to meet with Him.

2. God reminds us to come NEAR to Him. God doesn’t want us to be far away from Him. He doesn’t want everything else in the world to captivate our hearts. At the table we come near to one another and near to Him.

3. God reminds us (as we have mentioned) that our table is HIS TABLE.

4. God reminds us that the table is where we MINISTER UNTO HIM. God had His table in the Holy Place in the tabernacle. Every single day the twelve loaves of bread sat upon the table. Every week the priests came in and ate of the bread and fellowshipped with God and then placed new bread upon the table. The table was never without bread. It was called the “CONTINUAL shewbread” (Leviticus 24:5-8 and 2 Chronicles 2:4). Even when they traveled to a new place the continual bread had to be upon the table (Numbers 4:7).

God always has bread on His table. It’s there every day for us. It never runs out. We never have to go hungry in our souls and spirits. And therefore at our table each day, we open God’s precious Word and read it. It ministers to us and to our children. It prepares them for life. It prepares them to face the world. We cannot do without it or we starve spiritually. And not only does God minister to us by filling us with His eternal bread, but we minister to Him as we pray, and praise Him for all that He is.

Don’t vacate God’s table. He waits at His table in your home to meet with you, to feed you, and to have fellowship with you.

Be encouraged,

Nancy Campbell

Painting is by a Scottish painter: John Henry Lorimer (1856-1936)