Your priority this year: spend time in His presence MAIN IDEA Like David, seek and savor the presence of Jesus this year. Wise men still seek Him. When you have a desire to be more occupied with the presence of Jesus, your life will be gloriously transformed. KEY SCRIPTURES 1 Kings 3:4–15, Rev. 2:1

• Lessons from the story of Uzzah: When we try to “improve” on God’s ways by following our natural thinking, effort, or experience, the end result is bad. 
• This year, the way God is repairing the breaches in the Tabernacle of David is by showing us His ways again so that we can consciously depend on Him and not on ourselves.
• God’s ways of grace as seen in the contrast between the Tabernacle of Moses (the law) and the Tabernacle of David (grace): In the Tabernacle of Moses, there are many steps needed to get close to God and there is always the chance of death because people are judged by their performance/behavior. In the Tabernacle of David, people have free access to God. They worship directly before the ark of the covenant (the presence of God) and enjoy fellowship with Him.
• This year, let us place Jesus at the center of our lives and prioritize enjoying our free access to His throne of grace.

God gives us 3 faith pictures in Amos 9:13 and Joel 3:18:

• “the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed”—a picture of accelerated and abundant harvest.
• “the mountains shall drop sweet wine”—a picture of joy that will swallow up all the sighing and groaning of the last few years, also a picture of the gifts of the Spirit.
• “the hills will flow with milk”—a picture of abundance.

• It is when the Tabernacle of David is restored that you will see your harvest of breakthroughs (healing, provision, restoration) manifest in abundance and acceleration.
• At the core of the Tabernacle of David is intimacy with God. We can have this intimacy because we are under God’s grace—our sins have been removed by the blood of Jesus. Now we can come boldly into the presence of God and enjoy fellowship with Him.
• This year, have a heart for God like David did.
• The more you come into the presence of Jesus, the more you experience a new and living way. The more you come to Jesus, the more that disease dies, the more that depression dissipates, the more that addiction falls away—and the more you live!
• When you enjoy being on Mount Zion, the place of grace, you will be greatly and abundantly blessed, provided for, and filled with joy.

• This theme of Rest and Acceleration has everything to do with God restoring and repairing the “Tabernacle of David” to the church.
• This rebuilding of the Tabernacle of David began when the early church was born.
• The Tabernacle of David is a picture of the church that is under the new covenant of grace, not the old covenant of the law.
• As the church of Jesus Christ, we need to know that we have been saved by grace and not by our good works. This brings rest to our conscience and souls.

• The whole reason the Tabernacle of David was set up in Jerusalem was to house the ark of the covenant where the presence of God dwelt. David had a deep desire to bring the ark back to the center of God's people in Jerusalem (Mount Zion).
• This is why God called David a man after His own heart—a man who knew what He liked, who did what pleased Him, and whom He enjoyed being with—and chose David to be king over Israel.
• Unlike David, Saul (the first king of Israel) did not value the presence of God but left the ark of the covenant in the woods for 20 years.

• When you come to Jesus, He Himself will put your weary heart at rest (Matt. 11:28). To see Jesus is to enjoy every blessing God has for you.
• When God first gave instructions for how to build the ark of the covenant, His intention was to depict His Son through the ark.
• Every detail about the ark (made of durable acacia wood, overlaid with gold, the mercy seat covering the 3 items inside the ark) shows us more about Jesus and His atoning work at the cross.
• Lessons from the story of Beth Shemesh: When the mercy seat is removed and sin is exposed, death follows. Stop putting greater emphasis on man's sin and failure than on the atoning work of Jesus on the cross. Instead, focus on Jesus and trust that His blood has perfectly removed all your sins. When you do this, your heart will be at rest and you will experience God’s blessings.