This past January during worship on a Sunday morning I sensed an invitation from the Father to come into the ‘holy of holies.’ Have you ever had those moments when you hear more than instructions from the Lord? When you hear the ache of His heart behind His words? I felt like I was experiencing the outrageous love of a Father who has offered his children the Kingdom, while at the same time coming into an awareness of a deep longing He carried, as He followed up the invitation with, “Not every child of mine knows or understands the access they have been given.”
As I pondered this invitation in days to come, I began to think about the holy of holies. The innermost part of the Temple housed the ark of the covenant, where the presence of God would dwell. A large veil or curtain hung as the door. Only once a year could the high priest enter the holy of holies. He had to wash, put on special clothing and burn incense so the smoke would block his eyes from seeing God. Take in the significance of that event. You and I would not have been allowed into that space, into His mighty presence.
When Christ died and gave up His Spirit, God tore the veil in two. Man didn’t make this happen. It was God’s doing, and He was communicating a message to us through this event. God was bringing about a physical manifestation of a new spiritual reality.
Imagine living in the time of Christ? Now typically only the priests would have been able to enter the portion of the Temple in order to witness the torn curtain, but for today I want you to imagine the scene and pretend that you would have had access to see with your eyes what previously could have only heard with your ears.
Picture yourself in the city of Jerusalem, hearing reports of the temple veil being torn in two. You venture out to see for yourself. Your heart quickens as you approach the Temple, the murmurs around you have dissipated into silent awe as you gaze into the holy of holies, where only a few have entered throughout all of history.
It’s hard to comprehend the magnitude of what has just happened. Yet you know that the tearing of this veil is no coincidence with the timing of Christ’s death. Confirmation begins to settle upon your heart, and you think, “Jesus truly is the Son of God!” just as you thought!
The Holy Spirit begins to bring you a revelation that Christ became the sacrifice so that you are no longer separated from God. You no longer need a priest to go to God on your behalf. You can now take the fear of the times, the unspoken troubles of your soul, the acknowledgement of your sin, directly to your Father for Him to hear you, forgive you, and give you counsel, comfort and peace.
Suddenly history has shifted indeed, and as a believer in Jesus, now nothing stands in the way of you being able to partake in fellowship with God Almighty! You can now dine with the King!
We can enter God’s presence with confidence as Hebrews 10:19-20 says. “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
The Father wants more than just a few to enter the holy place of His presence, and to engage with Him in a way that profoundly changes our everyday life.
Maybe in this season, you feel the tug of the Father calling you to go deeper because you intellectually know that intimacy with Him is where you find your greater source of satisfaction, joy and life. Somehow, you are not satisfied with where you are at, you want to know Him more, you want to experience what you intellectually know to be true, according to the Word.
When God talks of ‘knowing Him’ in Scripture it is the Hebrew word ‘yada,’ which involves not only intellectual knowledge but also involves experiential knowledge. Jeremiah 24:7 says, “And I will give them a heart to know (yada) me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.”
I can experience His comfort in times of grief, and so begin to ‘know’ (yada) Him as a comforter. I can come ‘know’ (yada) Him as a God of grace and mercy when I acknowledge my sin.
In our culture of busy distractions, we have to be intentional in setting our hearts upon the Father more than anything else in this world. The first and greatest commandment found in Matthew 22:37 is to, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
We have to purposefully respond to the nudges of the Spirit to come away with Him. Engaging in a relationship with the Father does not just happen. Imagine a broken marital relationship where both parties say they want restoration. Are they going to experience healing and restoration if they do not engage with one another if they do not prioritize spending time together to restore communication? There is not a single relationship that grows without time spent together. It is the same with our Heavenly Father.
Spiritual disciplines require prioritizing our lives, and the truth is, we make room for what we value. It is a hard pill to swallow, but if we have not consciously made room to commune with Him, to linger long enough in the secret place to hear His heart, to receive His counsel, it reveals what we really value.
At the turn of the new year, I couldn’t get Enoch out of my mind. It’s funny though because there is not much said of Enoch to occupy my mind. It’s not like Joseph, where I could spend weeks thinking about his life, studying his choices, noting how he led with character whether in the prison or the palace. For Enoch, only two things are said of Him. We know him as one who ‘walked with God.’
Of all the things we could say we have done with our lives, the things we have accomplished, the gifts we have grown in, above all those things, I would want to be remembered as one who walked with God. One who ‘pleased God’ as Hebrews says of Enoch.
Jeremiah 9:23-24 says this, “Thus says the Lord: “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, 24 but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows (yada) me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord.”
When I pray for my three adult children, and my three grandchildren, more than being concerned about what they do with their lives, I pray above all else that they come to know God intimately.
God calls us into a place of intimacy for our own growth and godliness, but we also need to know Him well in order to fulfill our calling as His ambassadors. He includes us in His mission. 2 Corinthians 5:20 says, “We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.”
Think of Ananias. Saul was on his way to arrest believers yet encountered Christ and had become blind. On a regular, normal kind of day, Ananias has this vision and receives instructions from the Lord to go pray for Saul’s sight to be restored. But he was hesitant to go because of the reports about Saul persecuting believers. But God brings Him assurance and he goes in obedience.
As an ambassador, this is the kind of life we can live. In the midst of an average day, we can hear an assignment from the Father and carry out His will here on earth, because we have taken the time to be in fellowship with God. Because God’s will matters more to my day than my own will.
John 15:7-8 says, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.”
Part of the fruit we are to bear as ambassadors, as His children, is answered prayer. This brings the Father glory! Answered prayer is to be a common reality for His children. Imagine living in such intimacy with the Father, where my heart and my mind has been saturated with the truth of who God is, where I have been immersed in His presence, and I know Him so well that when my heart springs forth in prayer I am praying what God wants, and so it becomes a reality. Just think about this. His kingdom comes to earth through your prayers because He has your attentive ear. Because you have fostered intimacy.
At times we run from intimacy with the Father because we still carry father wounds that we have transferred onto God. We may live according to belief’s that say, “he doesn’t care about me.” “he won’t be there for me.” These beliefs could have been true in the moment of a childhood experience. The danger is, depending upon our response and repetition of the event, there can be a quick progression of this truth becoming a long-term lived-out lie. You then live, expecting his absence. Then when we come to faith, we don’t even realize it, but we can approach God with this underlying fear and belief that thinks, ‘maybe he won’t be there for me either.’ So, we want to engage but we are hesitant.
How many times have we broken intimacy because we have not wanted to do what God asks of us? We have only wanted our will, not His. Or we are afraid of what He is going to say if we go to Him in prayer, and so we avoid Him. Sometimes I want something so bad, but I live from the perception that God is a Father that says, “No!” So, I just go and get what I want, because I really believe that God is stingy, that He doesn’t want to give me good gifts. So, I go and get it for myself, causing me to miss out on knowing (yada) Him as the Giver of good gifts.
Maybe in the secret place, He says, “forgive,” and we say, “no way will I ever humble myself to forgive that person.” Maybe God says, “leave this relationship…go here… go there… follow me!” And we don’t like the cost, so we pretend we did not hear His voice.
Intimacy requires proper knowledge of God. Who do you know God to be? We live out what we believe. Are we worshiping a god of our own making, of our own understanding based upon our experiences and upbringing? Have I allowed my experiences to determine the truth of who God is or am I allowing the Word to tell me who He is?
Our greatest battle will be to believe that God is who He says He is. The more you grow in knowing God, the more unshakeable you will become. The strongholds and lies we believe, are only there because that area of our life has yet to have a revelation of God.
2 Cor. 10:4-5 says, “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.”
A stronghold sets itself up against the knowledge of God. The enemy does not want you to know God, because it is in knowing God that you will be set free.
We have all encountered events in our life that have brought great pain, yet for most of the world we run from our pain, we deny it, we stuff it, we suppress the pain with addictions. Let me tell you if you want to get to know the Father, let Him meet you in the midst of your pain. Let Him help you unpack wounds that still linger, where you become triggered. Let Him into your soul with the light of His glory to remove the cobwebs of self-protection or controlling behaviors. Let Him convict you where you need to become honest with yourself.
We are in a season where our unhealed emotions will begin to rise to the surface as stress grows daily around our world. Use this time to let Him into your pain, to have Him show you the depth of your soul and where you need His touch of grace upon you. Allow Him to reveal Himself to you in the midst of your struggles. Where you come to know Him in the midst of your suffering, no one can take that away from you.
I love what job discovered through his valley season. In the last chapter of Job, he responded to God and said, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you.” What was Job saying here? When he lived in great blessing and great prosperity, he knew God through hearing, yet after his suffering, he had a greater revelation of God and was now able to say, “But now my eyes see you!”
The King awaits your response to His invitation.
