Coming Into His Presence

Psalm 100:4
Enter into HIS gates with thanksgiving, and into HIS courts with praise....

The Temple....
The center of life in Jerusalem....
Spiritually, we could learn from this.
What is the directive we all should seek after when we gather for a time of worship and teaching? To come into God's presence. To worship Him and receive from Him.
To do that, you have to go into the Holy of Holies . The place that was reserved for the High priest to enter into. You may be thinking, "well, that lets me off the hook.' Not so quick.
According to I Peter 2:9, we are members of a "royal priesthood". In other words, as a follower of Jesus, we have been afforded the right to come into God's presence.

Too often, when we gather for corporate worship, we simply want to stand in the courtyard and view everything. In fact we are quiet satisfied to do such. We feel like just the act of being around meetings...and being counted among those who attend is all that we need to do. No need in actually participating in all the rig-a-ma-roll that goes on with these meetings. But the truth is, we find ourselves crying out to God for various reasons, but we are not willing to go into His presence. In our selfishness, we want God to respond to us, rather than the opposite. We want Him to leave the Holy of Holies and come out into the outer courtyard. Come and heal me...come and fix me...come and meet my needs, but don't ask me to come to where you are.
So we go away the same as we came...still with all our baggage and sickness...unchanged. 

Jesus proclaimed that He was "The way, the truth and the life", and that no one could come to the Father but by Him. He didn't say the He was the the way, the truth and the life and God could not come to you but by Him.

Don't pull a "Zacchaeus"and be content to hide at a distance hoping to catch a glimpse of Jesus.
Don't be satisfied with standing in the outer courtyard.....
Don't be satisfied with standing in the Temple.....
Go into the Holy of Holies where the presence of God dwells...
Go behind the curtain, if you will, and just bask in His presence. 
Let Him speak to you...
Let Him love you....
Let Him change you....

Above you see a diagram of the Tabernacle given to Moses to build. The entrance to the Tabernacle is at the bottom. The entire set up is a "show and tell" model of how to approach God. The very first thing you come to is the "Bronze Altar"..here you would present an offering to be burnt. A sin offering, if you will. It was to be totally consumed, nothing left. Today, before we can go into God's presence, our sin has to be dealt with. It has to be offered up to God, through confession and repentance.

Next we see the Bronze laver...it was like a huge bowl where water was kept. You were expected to wash yourself.....
We are washed in the blood of Jesus when our sin is dealt with. We are cleansed by the renewing of our mind. We are washed through the word of God.

Then we enter the Holy Place where we are reminded of who Christ is.
The Golden lampstand reminds us that Jesus is the light of the world, and that through our salvation, we are now "Light"....Light that is to be seen and not hidden. In other words, we become representatives of Christ here in this day and age.

Then there is the table of shewbread, reminding us that Jesus is the bread of life. That He is our all sufficiency as we walk out our days. we are to look to Him and Him alone for everything we need.

The altar of incense speaks of our prayers. Like the smoke from the incense, our prayers rise to the heavens and are received by God. IN fact, in the book of Revelation, it speaks of our prayers being collected in bowls and then poured out back to earth. I guess the old adage of what goes up, must come down is true. God answers our prayers.

Finally, you make your way behind the curtain into the presence of God. There is not other place I'd rather be than in His presence. That is my soul aim every Saturday night when we gather at Vineyard Recovery Church...to be in His presence. To pour out my heart to Him. To not walk away with anything but the sheer knowledge that I have spent time with Him.

Don't be content to stand on the shore, watching everyone else swim.....
Jump in!
"Come on in boys........the water's fine!!"

God on you...
mb