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The Lord is Your PRESENCE
In a message at victory World Church in Norcroos, GA, Pastor Colleen Rouse described Jehovah Shammah in a comparison with the Wilderness Tabernacle. While other parts of this Who Is God series have been inspired by this particular sermon series, using many of my own comments and illustrations, I am going to pretty much condense the notes from her message verbatim for part 6 -- no need to reinvent the wheel.
If you have committed your life to Jesus, then Jehovah Shammah is your guarantee that He is there, living inside of you, reigning in your heart and mind. His Presence is with you in trouble, in loneliness, in persecution -- in every area of your life.
Where could I go from Your Spirit? Or where could I flee form Your Presence? (Psalm 139:7)
While wandering around the desert, the ancient Jews worshipped God in a portable tabernacle. This tabernacle had 3 sections, or courts, designed for the various aspects of their worship: the Outer Court, the Inner Court, and the Holy of Holies. Our worship of God, and His Presence with us, can be described using that tabernacle as an analogy.
The Outer Court Encounter
The Outer Court of the tabernacle was the place where all Jewish worshippers could enter. they would bring their sacrifices in order to atone for their sins. The two major pieces of furniture in the Outer Court were the bronze altar and the bronze laver. The altar was where the sacrificial offerings were laid, representing their recognition of God's judgment of sin. The laver, where they washed their hands and feet, symbolized the cleansing from sin.
The reality of sin in our lives is what first causes us to encounter the Presence of God. We come to an awareness of our sin, and of our need to be cleansed from it. In the prelude to the Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6, Jesus speaks of going to a "secret place" in order to pray. This is so we can encounter God as we face our need for Him. This is our "Outer Court".
The Inner Court Encounter
Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit has His permanent dwelling in you? (I Corinthians 3:16)
Since the Jewish Temple was a permanent replica of the Wilderness Tabernacle, we can look at it this way:
Our physical body is the Outer Court Our soul (mind, will, and emotions) is the Inner Court Our Spirit (what lives on after death) is the Holy of Holies
The Inner Court had three main pieces of furnishings: a golden lampstand, a table of bread, and a golden altar for incense. Many people use the analogy of "being a living sacrifice" to mean coming to God and sacrificing our will to His. You may have heard the joke "the bad thing about a living sacrifice is that it keeps wiggling off the altar". But being a "living sacrifice" isn't about us placing ourselves on the bronze altar in the Outer Court. That altar was for the sacrifice for sin -- which Jesus made when He went to the cross. No need for us to, as I stated in my disclaimer at the top, reinvent the wheel.
Our being a "living sacrifice" is a reference to the golden altar in the Inner Court. This altar was where incense was burned continually as a sweet aroma to God. It is upon this altar we are to place our lives. Live our lives as a "sweet aroma" before God.
The Holy of Holies Encounter
The Ark of the Covenant was what furnished this section of the tabernacle. The Ark was where the Presence of God resided among them.
As we keep His commands, we live deeply and surely in Him, and He lives in us. And this is how we experience His deep and abiding Presence in us: by the Spirit He gave us. (I John 3:24)
In the tabernacle only the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies. And He could only do so after having fully consecrated himself before God. If he had not done so, then to enter the Holy of Holies would mean death. Jesus was our high priest, who entered the Holy of Holies in order to prepare a way for us to approach God.
In fact, the New Testament makes it clear that for the believer, God's Presence is in us. We are to be the Ark of the Covenant. And we can be by having a continual awareness of the reality of His Spirit within us. To live a life that reverences God.
Read Psalm 139 and pray it as a prayer of consecration or your lie to God.
God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand.
I'm an open book to you;
even from a distance, you know what I'm thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
I'm never out of your sight.
You know everything I'm going to say
before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you're there,
then up ahead and you're there, too?
your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much, too wonderful?
I can't take it all in!
Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you're there!
If I go underground, you're there!
If I flew on morning's wings
to the far western horizon,
You'd find me in a minute?
you're already there waiting!
Then I said to myself, "Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
At night I'm immersed in the light!"
It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you;
night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you.
Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother's womb.
I thank you, High God?you're breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration?what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I'd even lived one day.
Your thoughts?how rare, how beautiful!
God, I'll never comprehend them!
I couldn't even begin to count them?
any more than I could count the sand of the sea.
Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!
And please, God, do away with wickedness for good!
And you murderers?out of here!?
all the men and women who belittle you, God,
infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
See how I hate those who hate you, God,
see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;
I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred.
Your enemies are my enemies!
Investigate my life, O God,
find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
get a clear picture of what I'm about;
See for yourself whether I've done anything wrong?
then guide me on the road to eternal life.
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