Psalm 27:4

Once a year thousands gather in Kansas City, Missouri to fast and pray at a conference dubbed Onething.  Many of these individuals have an eye that is single and a passion that is great.  Our mission as leaders at IHOP-KC is to further the prayer movement globally by calling individuals such as these into extravagant devotion to Jesus through prayer, fasting and the study of Gods Word.  The Onething Conference has been set in place to ignite, reignite, and further inflame the hearts of many who are daily falling deeper in love with Jesus.  To this end, I would like to address the verse that has molded the foundation and given life to the roots of this conference’s focus and entitlement – Psalm 27:4.

My expounding of said verse is rooted in a reality that has fueled much of what has taken place at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City.  This verse has a very significant prophetic heritage not only in my life, but also in the founding of IHOP-KC.  The one thing reality is a lifestyle that beckons for something deeper, something greater, something so experientially unthinkable that it can only be explained by words such as, “It was God!”  Jesus is raising up individuals across this earth who have a similar resolve in their spirit as David did in this psalter.  They are ones who desire only one thing from the Lord – encounter.  They want to meet Him, be saturated in His manifest presence, and be consumed with a Man that will shake heaven, earth and humanity to its very foundations. 

The one thing of King David was an all-consuming passion that was both released and expressed appropriately.  It is here that I would like to introduce the foundational principle of the verse: the depth of David’s cry to seek, dwell, behold, and inquire in the presence of God was both satisfied and fueled in the place of prayer.  Even as a king, David was first and foremost a worshipper (2 Chr. 6:8). His heart was living for something more than his current sovereign rule over Israel.  We see his spiritual identity in other psalms remaining fixed on being both loved and a lover of God, a passionate worshipper who longed to encounter and understand the beauty and wonder of God (Ps. 19; 36; 145; 18:1; 31:23; 36:8; 145:5).

In the New Testament we see the ideal example of an individual who grasped this same truth.  In Luke 10 we see Mary, the sister of Martha, choosing the very thing that Jesus defines as the “one thing” that is needed (Luke 10:42).  She had the revelation that sitting at the feet of Jesus was where the feast could be found and her life source would be drawn (John 6:33-58).  The fruit of her being in this place was an infilling of understanding in her spirit that went beyond the normal human intellect concerning Jesus’ identity.  As one looks at all of the great minds of her time, it was a young maiden – most likely with a minimal amount of education – who knew why God had come in the flesh.  She sat before Him, listened to His words, and in turn gained insight into the death of Jesus (John 12:3).

Jesus was going somewhere and Mary was given the wisdom needed to understand where He was going – the cross.  Presently, humanity is in a unique hour and it begs that we seek, dwell, behold, and inquire of the Lord as both Mary and David did.  This is because once again, Jesus is going somewhere.  He will not be at the right hand of the Father in heaven forever.  His return is certain and He desires to share with those who waste their lives in devotion to Him what He is doing and how we can partner with Him.  His second coming hinges on the ones who partner with Him through prayer and worship (Is. 42:10-14) and listen to what the Spirit is testifying (John 16:13).  His second coming is a response to a global cry, not a surprise to lethargic a bride.