4.2 Into Limited Devotion

As we approached the Door into the Devoted place, we noticed that it was the same Jesus through whom we had entered into the first knowledge of our redemption inside of His Blood. In my own life, however, this was the first time Jesus came to me as the bony finger of God with the STERN admonition, “Will you surrender all that you are to Me, right now?” Surrendering fully to Jesus as Lord would mean that I was no longer in control of my life. What happened next for me was exactly God’s clear path into knowing Him.

The Door into the Devoted place is just the same as the Gate into the outer court. We got down on our knees in surrender, we lifted up the cloth, and we placed the Lord Jesus upon ourselves as the One who fills us with His Spirit.

Is There Something More? When we arose inside the Devoted place, we saw a room inside of God we had never known existed. No Christian remaining in the outer court has a clue as to what God has for them inside the Tabernacle.

Being filled with the Spirit on the one hand and being immersed into the Spirit on the other hand are two very Biblical concepts. Nonetheless, God gave us His Spirit when we asked Jesus into our hearts. – He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him (1 Corinthians 6). It was our spirit that came alive by the Word of God when we were “born again.” The Spirit of God with us caused that to happen. Is there something more?

Into Our Souls. With God, there will never be an end to the increase of our knowing of Him. A billion years from now, we will continue going on to know the Lord. How could it be otherwise?

When we were born again, God’s Spirit came into union with our spirits. From that moment on, the Devoted Spirit was given to us. But we know that God never forces His knowledge on anyone. Forever, every next step we take with God requires us to ask and then to believe we have received. The very moment we surrendered to Jesus as the Door, the Spirit of God flowed out from our spirits into our SOULS, flooding our minds, our desires, and our emotions with God. That’s why we laughed with such overflowing Joy.

Inside the Devoted Place. The first thing we noticed inside this new space was the utter peace. All the noise and dust of the outer court was gone. The next thing we noticed was the Lampstand to our left, because everything else we now saw was lit by its gentle light. We then noticed the Table of Showbread to our right as the wondrous odor of freshly baked bread drew us.

Beyond the Light of the Anointing and the Bread of Life, we saw a second smaller Altar and the incense burning upon it. Beyond that Altar was another heavy cloth, the Veil. In our knowing at that time, we saw no farther than the Veil. We did not yet know that EVERYTHING inside this Devoted place is meant to take us through that Veil into what is beyond. Yet we were hungry, thus we looked first to the Bread.

The Table of Showbread. I am the Bread of Life. – The one eating of My flesh and drinking of My blood has life age-unfolding… (John 6).

The moment the Spirit of God flooded into our souls, the words on the pages of our Bibles became something we had never imagined. They became LIFE, and we knew them by the Spirit. – The Words that I speak to you are Spirit and they are Life (John 6:63). We knew immediately that the words of the Bible are not to be ideas for the intellect; rather, they are the creative power of Life, welling up inside, causing us to know God. We then saw so many things in our Bibles we had never seen before.

Yet the Light and the Bread are side by side, for we must know that Word and Spirit are always together.

The Lampstand. The Lampstand lit everything in this Devoted place with its gentle glow. The Lampstand is the Church; when we gathered together again, we knew that we drink of the same Spirit. The oil and fire together is the Anointing, anointing everything, beginning with our knowing of the Word. The Anointing taught us that what God speaks goes way beyond the intellectual limitations we had imposed in the outer court.

We were led of the Spirit inside our own souls; we knew that we are sons out from God. The Spirit enabled us to see ever farther into the depths and extent of God. The Spirit came upon our gathering with power, and as we gave to one another from Spirit gifts, we knew the Lord Jesus as never before. We knew His love; we are His actual body.

A Limited Devotion. The purpose of primary school is to learn the basics. The purpose of high school is to become finished in learning. But the middle school years are meant only as preparation for high school. Learning in those years is limited. Put a bunch of eighth grade boys in a woodshop full of tools without supervision and you have a dangerous mess. Give God’s people the Word of Truth and the Gifts of the Spirit and you have the same dangerous mess.

Spirit upon flesh, what a risk! You can do anything you want with the Spirit God gives, anything you want with His Word. Yet how could we have gone on to know the Lord except we had spent time learning the basics of the Spirit by which we know? Tools have a purpose, and that purpose was still ahead.

The Altar of Incense. Being filled now with Word and with Spirit as God intended inside this part of our journey, we proceeded next to the Altar of Incense before the Veil. What was beyond the Veil commanded our purpose inside this Altar. We saw wondrous things ahead, being filled with all of God and rivers of Spirit flowing out. We saw Christ being formed in us, our being made just like Jesus, transformed into His image. Yet at that moment, those things seemed just beyond our reach.

We imagined that we could not quite reach those things, that we were not yet ready, and so we yielded ourselves to the fire upon the Altar, “God, my Father, make me ready for You.” That Altar is “no sufficiency in ourselves.” It is truly Fire.

God Is a Consuming Fire. The purpose of the fire of the Altar is simple – no trust in self becoming all trust in God-with-me. Yet it is in that simple equation that Jesus faces the great difficulty of Salvation. God on the other side of that Veil is a consuming Fire, how can we live inside of that which allows for NO human pretending? We Christians are really good at putting on a show with Spirit and with Word when our hearts don’t actually belong to God, making others believe that we are “above them” “with God.”

Two things cannot pass through that Veil, lying and unbelief. For thirty years that Fire burned in my life until Jesus Himself took me through that Veil. Yet it does not bring us to an end, as we falsely believed, just our stupidity. God as Fire takes all that we are into Joy.

Utter and Complete Failure. Consider these words from the KJV. – If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him (John 14:23). This is the verse that judges every Christian. Those who truly belong to Jesus long to know the Father at Home with them.

Yet the Fire requires Truth in the inward parts. And God awaits with baited breath for that moment when you fall on your face in the mud under a cross you cannot carry, just like Jesus, and you cry in unmitigated despair, “Oh God, I CANNOT keep Your Word. I never have and I know I never will.” Yet you will not be turned aside, so you cling to Jesus alone. You will discover later that your seeing of utter failure was the LIGHT turning on. – Jesus, carried by Father, carries me.

The Day of Atonement. On the Day of Atonement, Aaron, the High Priest, portrayed the single most revolutionary act in all of human history, not once, but twice. Two times, Aaron took the Blood of Sacrifice all the way into God and sprinkled that Blood upon the Mercy Seat. And then – what he did next each time is more staggering than you or I can presently comprehend.

Aaron TURNED AROUND.

The first time, pertaining to us then as we sought to live inside of the Most Devoted place, was for his own sins – GONE. Is the Cross of Christ enough for you? Is the Blood of Jesus enough for you? Is the resurrection Life of Jesus, now your only life, all that you need? The Fire speaks the Truth.

Let Us Go On. You will never live inside of the Secret Place of the Most High if you imagine in the slightest iota that you are capable, or must, or should, or would, or could connect yourself to God, or do His will, or please Him in any way. Jesus ALONE connects you with God, giving you His Faith as your own. Living inside of Jesus is the ONLY thing that pleases God.

The Cross of Christ is now behind you, keeping you safe from all sin and death. The Blood of Jesus has cleansed you from all consciousness of sins. You never wickedly imagine yourself separate from God ever again. Yet as the LIFE of Jesus carried us into the presence of God, we discovered something utterly astonishing. The Veil is already torn open; we have always lived here, inside of Jesus, inside of God! – Let us go on to know the Lord.