The Habitat for Holiness

I was stumped!
It was 3:30 on an early Sunday morning and I hadn’t slept a wink. My dad had been praying throughout the week and believed I was supposed to deliver the upcoming Sunday morning message. I had been scrambling all weekend to come up with anything to speak on (those who know me know I rarely lack anything to say). I had preached at the church many times, and for as long as I could remember, I never faced as much difficulty preparing for a message. But this time was different!
Saturday night I was bound and determined to come up with a topic but never felt the leading of the Holy Spirit. I stayed up the whole night, searching, praying, studying, looking at old notes, and still nothing came. Finally, the tiring and mental fatigue was all I could take. I fell on my knees and prayed like I had never prayed before. I cried out to God. I vividly remember praying, “Lord, give me a word for your people. I am so utterly empty and feel completely useless. Give me a word that will rattle the cages of this world and will pierce through the heart of your church. My life is not my own, it is yours and I ask You: Give me a word that will impact your church!”
That prayer led me to this book. Soon after I prayed, God directed me to Exodus 15:2(KJV), “The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father’s God, and I will exalt him.” I pondered this scripture, but I didn’t know where to go with it. I learned it was a song of Moses to the Lord, and soon this lyric struck through my heart, “and I will prepare him a habitation”. The metaphorical hamster in my head began to start turning on his wheel, and I began to wonder what the word habitation even meant. If you research the biblical definition of the word “habitation”, you will find a definition by the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia which states a habitation: “properly a place of sojourn or dwelling.”
In other words, a habitation is a dwelling place. From the moment I learned that, I could never recall a sermon coming so quickly or easily to me. God began revealing to me that our lives are a spiritual habitat, a dwelling place for Him.
In a similar sense, each of us exists in our own habitat, a spiritual environment which exalts either God or the flesh. In this book, we will refer to our walk with the Lord as the habitat. As believers, we create a culture which brings either glory to God or it doesn’t. Our spiritual habitat sets the standard for every area of our lives, because it represents the most important thing in our lives: our relationship with Jesus. This habitat can be strong and yield much for the Kingdom of God if we are willing to the take steps to grow closer in our daily lives with the Lord.