HC '18 Men's Retreat (Day 2 Morning)

The Cross

The tabernacle is a foreshadow of Christ and all things in it are to reflect Christ.

This includes the alter, we do not approach the alter in our own merit but we approach him under his merit, knowing who he is.

Access to God is not in our own merit but through Christ’s merit, we must acknowledge him which means we acknowledge the cross.

The cross changes our perspective of the alter. We are not needing new justification but we should acknowledge that the alter tells us about how we must come to God and offer sacrafice.

The Lever (Washing pool)

Before we go to the alter, the priests were to wash themselves. We must come before God realizing that we come into his presence but need to have reverence, we must wash ourselves.

Acknowledge that we are not perfect and we sin, and inspect our sin, ask for cleansing by acknowledging it and confessing it in order to come to God and ask for his cleansing.

We must go to God and ask that he wash us in all that we are.

So :

1)Acknowledge the Cross

2)Allow God to wash our heart (our guilty conscious)

The Holy Place

If we want to commune with God we must do the former things, but the Holy Place is a place in which the Spirit of God was, wisdom is found here, for those who seek him, he can be found.

This is the place we acknowledge that true wisdom is found in the Spirit and in this place we surrender ourselves to him.

The Table of Showbread

The Word is the bread, we must come and eat. We must come and hear the voice of God made evident from the Word

Its not about reading its about hearing, whether its big chunks or small chunks. We position ourselves to hear from the Lord

Jeremiah 23:28 ESV

Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the Lord.

The Alter of Incense

This is the place of Worship

We spend a lot of time in the outer court, the place of the cross, the place of washing.....

We spend little time in the place of the candlestick, the place of worship, the place of intimacy.

The Holy of Holies

Here sits the ark

This is the place of the mercy seat

This is a place of stillness, a place of answered prayer in which hearts are aligned and communion occurs

This is a place where there are no human works, we do not every come here w/o fully being aware of the cross, it is not possible to enter without full awareness, deeper degrees of this

Summary: Intimacy with Christ is not acquired but given through the cross, we can not make our own way to intimacy, we must always come through the narrow path of the cross all the way through into his presence.