We do not earn God’s love and affection as a wage, but receive it as a gift. We are not performing, we are resting in and enjoying His presence, unity with Him that we can access ONLY because of the completed work of Jesus Christ. Jesus tells us the He is the way, the truth, the life and that no one comes through the Father but through Him so that’s the reality of how we approach intimacy.
Jesus is the Waymaker.
God has consistently made a way where the seems to be no way. We were created from intimate relationship. We are created for intimate relationship and it is through Jesus, what he did was to restore us to that intimacy.
When God Tore The Veil
2 Cor. 5:17-19 – “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, [they are] a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the message of reconciliation: That God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them…”
Matt. 27:51 – “At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.”
During the lifetime of Jesus, the temple in Jerusalem was the center of Jewish religious life. The temple was the place where animal sacrifices were carried out and worship according to the Law of Moses was followed faithfully. The veil was 60 ft. high and 4 inches thick!
In the temple, the veil separated the Holy of Holies—the earthly dwelling place of God’s presence—from the rest of the temple. Only the high priest was permitted to pass beyond this veil once each year to enter into God’s presence for all of Israel and make atonement for their sins.
When THE VEIL was torn…
- We were no longer separated.
- God moved out to us. God was through with the temple and its religious system. When Jesus died, the veil tore, and God moved out of that place, never again to dwell in a temple…
Where God Dwells
Acts 17:24 – “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.”
We can now enter the PRESENCE OF GOD through Christ and vice versa.
Hebrews 10:19-20 says that the faithful enter into the sanctuary by the “blood of Jesus, by the new and living way which he opened for us through the veil, that is, through his flesh.”
So, what happened to the TEMPLE ? Where is The dwelling place of God?
1 Cor. 3:16 – “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?”
1 Cor. 6:19 – “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?”
Gal. 2:20 – “It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me…” (That is the depth of UNITY we have…)
In us. In us! Jesus lived and died to reveal the Father and make His presence available to us! You are a tabernacle, a moveable habitation of God’s presence.
God beyond comprehension, who defeated sin and death on our behalf, who told Moses if he looked upon Him he would surely die, (Exodus 33) now lives in us and desires intimacy with us. Face to face, heart to heart, arm in arm.
Through Christ (our WAYMAKER), YOU are a dwelling place for God most high!
He wants to make his “home” in your heart.
Eph. 3:16-17 – 16 I pray that out of the riches of His glory, He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell (make His home) in your hearts through faith…”
THIS IS THE FOUNDATION OF OUR IDENTITY: To the degree we walk in revelation of intimacy with him we are made more like him.
We must not turn intimacy into something we DO. It’s SO MUCH more. It is something to be experienced and walked out EVERY MOMENT OF THE DAY. One with God. Walking in unity of heart, mind, passion and desire IN CONSTANT COMMUNION.
Resources:
Abba’s child
Still Life
Sacred Romance
Redeeming Love
Magazine (quarterly) called “Cultivate”
Bible Project