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A RETURN TO THE OUTER COURT:
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Let us briefly refresh ourselves in what we began talking about at the beginning. And speaking of the beginning, we know that a person comes to have a personal relationship with God through receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This results in the new birth. You’re saved but as of yet, there is no real intimacy of fellowship. You’re in the outer court of the Temple, which is not a bad place to be. Thank God that by His saving grace, you’re there. From there, we come to know about God through His Logos Word, through reading it for ourselves and through the teaching and preaching of it through others.
Through these avenues, we gain knowledge of the mind and that is also good because Romans 12:2 says, that our minds need to be renewed by the Word of God. Our minds have to be restored back to thinking in line and in agreement with the Word. Our minds have to be conformed to the perfect will of God that produces the good fruit of righteousness in our thoughts, speech and actions. It is here in the outer court that you not only begin having your mind renewed to God’s Word but you also learn to pray and communicate with God. As I mentioned before, we must never become satisfied to remain here in the outer court because God desires that we move up higher in Him. Therefore, it is here that you’re faced with a decision to go on deeper with God, or remain in, as it were, in the shallow, stagnant water of religion.
It is also here that you often come to God with your prayer list in hand and you commence telling God everything you want Him to do for you like He‘s some errand boy in a dept. store. We so often, in this place, do all the talking and we don’t give God a chance to communicate to us what is on His heart concerning our lives and destiny. I remember one time when I was doing just this very thing--doing all the talking and not allowing God to get a word in edge-wise.
Finally, when I paused to take a breath, the Lord said, “I don’t hand select a certain few to talk to. I desire to talk to all my children, but they’re always busy doing all the talking and they listen little. Yea, I say, get still before Me and know that I am God.”
Well, needless to say, I got the message loud and clear, “Be quiet and let me get a word in edge-wise. I have a few things I desire to say to you.” I got quiet and He began to answer some questions that I’d been asking Him about for some time. Maybe we would get a few more questions answered quicker if we would just be quiet long enough to allow God to speak to us. But many are the times when we think, if we don’t talk, God won’t talk to us and if He’s silent, that would just be too uncomfortable for us to endure. It’s harder to endure unanswered questions about important things than it is to be a little uncomfortable.
Because we’re uncomfortable with the silence in God’s presence, we often just talk to hear noise. Sometimes in God’s ears, that’s all our incessant prattle amounts to---noise because we don’t have the patience to get still and listen. To sit at His feet and know that He is God. There are times when God desires and requires nothing more of us than to just sit quietly before Him and wait. Is this for nothing? Just wasted time? No. We are being taught, not only in developing patience, but also in learning to still our souls before Him. To bring every wandering thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, the anointing where it can be destroyed. We are learning obedience.
We’re learning in these times, to shut down everything else and focus on God and Him alone. We are also learning to silently worship Him from our spirits in this non-verbal intimate communion with our wonderful Lord and Savior. It’s in these times that you begin learning to see Jesus more clearly and behold His glory through the eyes of your heart. This doesn’t happen all at once and it doesn’t happen when we’re all super active in rattling off our all important prayer lists. It’s in this “rattling off” of a list of wants, classified in our thinking as needs, that we still only know God relationally. This translates to merely knowing about God. Jesus said, “Learn of Me.” You learn of Jesus:
1-Through the reading and meditating on the Word as its revealed by the Holy Spirit. 2-Through persuing intimate fellowship with Jesus. 3-Through prayer and intercession. 4-Through thanksgiving and praise. 5-Through worship of Him in Spirit and in truth. 6-Through spending quality time in His presence, allowing Him to communicate His heart to
you.
God, your heavenly Father desires to have you come before Him in prayer, praise and worship to have fellowship with Him. And in order to do this, the first thing you have to do is throw out your prayer list and come to get His. Throw out your agenda and come to get His agenda for your life. When you do this, you’re beginning to move into something so wonderful and so rewarding as a child of God that your imagination won‘t stretch far enough to comprehend it.
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JOURNEYING TO THE INNER COURT:
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When you begin your journey with Jesus after you’re born again, it is a journey that will move you from the outer court and into the inner court of the Temple of God. Once you come to the inner court, this is the place where you begin desiring to know more of God’s heart. It’s the place where you begin asking your Father to reveal to you what is on His heart. Not just about you and your life but concerning all matters of importance to Him. It is the place where you begin looking beyond self and become more “God-minded” and “other-minded.”
The inner court is the place where you desire to please your heavenly Father to a greater degree than ever before. While in the outer court, you thought little about pleasing God. You were more concerned with pleasing yourself. After all, you had your prayer list and you told God what you wanted Him to do for you. That was enough. You could then leave your prayer time and go about your business. And God had His business to do---grant all your prayer demands. While He did all of that, you could go on and not give God too much more thought for the remainder of the day or night.
It is true that we’re to come before God with our petitions, making prayers of supplication and asking in prayer that His promises would manifest in our lives concerning a need. But nowhere in Scripture are we told to come ranting and raving and making demands of God in arrogance while calling it bold praying in faith. We are to come to God’s throne with boldness---with confidence in Him and in the promises of His Word, believing that He hears and answers our prayers of faith according to His will, not our‘s. We’re all guilty of coming before God in arrogant praying.
When I saw that I was guilty of this very thing, I was deeply ashamed and repentant of my irreverence to God, my Father. As a parent myself, I could see clearly how I would feel if my own child was to come to me in this same fashion, never saying I love you, or thank you and then after making demands, leave my presence. I would feel dishonored, taken for granted and very hurt. Even though my child’s behavior wouldn’t change my love for them. It would be because of my love for them that I would feel the hurt. Our heavenly Father feels these things beyond what we can understand because of His great love for each of His children whom He delights in. Let us take care to give Him, Who gave to us so great a salvation through His Son, the honor and reverence He is due.
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THE STRIPPING:
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It is here in the inner court where you will find yourself in a place of separation, being stripped bare of everything fleshly and carnal. There must be a separation between spirit and soul, and soul and body with the end result that your spirit, in agreement with the Holy Spirit and the Word of God, takes over rule. “For the word of God is quick and powerful, and shaper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intentes of the heart” (Heb.4:12). Simply broken down, the Word of God is powerful and sharp enough to separate us from sin. On the flip side, if we don’t allow the Holy Spirit to do this stripping and separating in our lives then the sin we’d rather hold on to will separate us from God.
Here in the inner court is the place of conflict (war) between the spirit and the flesh because the flesh, the carnal mind is at enmity with God (Romans 8:6) as well as being at enmity with our own spirits that have been quickened unto life by the Holy Spirit. This is a place of mixture, fleshly desires as verses desires of the spirit. At times, you may experience such frustration that you begin to doubt whether you can go all the way from the inner court to the most holy place. A lot of God’s people die in this wilderness time. That is, they give up and quit because they find the price too costly to pay for going to the next level of faith and glory. They quit trying to get to that land flowing with milk and honey, the holy of holies when it‘s only a step away.
There will be periods when the struggle here will be most intense. You will be confronted with temptations of the flesh that arises to distract you away from your real heart’s desire. From the real joy of your heart, the Lord Jesus Himself. But remember, God always makes a way of escape when faced with temptation. He’s given you authority in Jesus name to say, “no” to the enemy working through your mind, will and emotions, pressuring you to give up because the journey is too hard.
You can also rest assured that God is well able to keep that which you’ve committed unto Him against that day. When you truly believe this and accept it by faith and act accordingly, you can cease from struggle. You can rest in Him, knowing that the blood of Jesus is powerful enough to help you pass-over from the inner court and on into the holy of holies. It is by your will in agreement with His will and heart, it is by His strength empowering you that you will be able to take each step required on this journey toward the fulfilling of your destiny. Your part is to yield to the Holy Spirit, Who will lead you right on in where you desire to go. To your Father-God, Who eagerly awaits your presense.
The inner court is also a place where you’re faced once again with a decision. You’re here in the inner court because God, by His Spirit, is calling you to that higher calling, the holy of holies. The Holy Spirit is drawing you and wooing you to come closer, but at the same time, because the Holy Spirit is a gentleman, He won’t go against your will. Thus, you find yourself in the “valley of decision.” This is because, with each new level of faith and glory God calls you to, there is a price to pay. Many will be willing to pay the price and many will decline and choose to remain where they are at the moment. They will never grow beyond their present existance to touch and know the living God on a level of intimacy thats astounding and glorious.
By deciding to remain here in the inner court, a person will put themselves in danger of stagnating. No roots, not fruits, only deadness. People who get to this point of stagnation very often fall away (back slide) from God to go their own way, while maintaining that they have religion. The Bible speaks of “Having a form of religion but denying the power therein.” You will just be caught up in religious works, trying to work to be good enough for God. Everything we accomplish is by and through God’s (amazing) grace and power operating in and through us as we yield our lives totally to Him to be used as a vessel of honor for His glory.
The Bible also speaks of a “falling away” from the Church to come before the return of our King, Jesus Christ (II Thess.2:3). This is all the more reason to begin entering in to that secret place of refuge. The Lord God is our refuge. Where do we find Him? In that most holy place. In the safety of His awesome presence---under the shadow of His wing, “He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (Psalm 91).
It is here in the inner court that you will be stripped of everything that stands in between you and coming into that most holy place of intimate communion with the Lord. By the loving hand of God, you will be stripped of pride, idols, selfishness, lust, bitterness, unforgiveness, prejudice, jealousy, judgmentalism, criticism, greed, etc. This is why, like I mentioned earlier, that we want to keep our veil’s in place so as not to have our sins exposed to the illuminating light of God’s glory.
We think that by doing this, we can avoid being stripped bare of these things that we’ve held onto for so long. Everybody on planet earth wants to avoid pain if at all possible whether it’s physical, spiritual or emotional pain. And we know instinctively that to have things not of God stripped from us will no doubt be very painful. You can liken this pain to be at times like having your skin stripped from your body.
When we speak of the “flesh” this is not talking about literally having your body skin stripped from you. It’s talking about your soul area that is made up of your mind, will and emotions. From these areas also come your decision making ability and your desires. Also, your memory where you store hurts and offenses that can poison the spirit and soul of a person if not dealt with through love and forgiveness and by the Word of God.
We have to be willing and allow God to tear down those “pet” things, those idols that we’ve built altars to and have worshiped whether knowingly or unknowingly. The question may be asked, how can you know if you have an idol in your life? One way is to check what is coming forth out of your mouth, either to yourself or to others. What is the one thing you spend your time talking about the most?
Is it some offense you’ve held onto for a long time, rehearsing it over and over in your mind until by now it’s become a grudge? A grudge that has led to unforgiveness toward the person and finally has ended up as a root of bitterness in your soul? If this is true, then the offense has become your idol where you bow before it and cry out your complaints and murmurings. It’s time for the altars we’ve built to false god’s to come down in Jesus name and we rebuild an altar of worship where we give our worship to the only true God. The great God Jehovah!
In the inner court, you will be brought to this place of examination by the illuminating light of the Holy Spirit, Who will expose those areas of offense, those areas of darkness still in your soul. Once they’re exposed, you will be asked to repent and be cleansed of that unrighteousness. God’s love and forgiveness will not only set you free but your love and forgiveness toward the other person will set them free as well (Mark 11:25-26).
It is also in the inner court where you will realize that when you came into God’s Kingdom through the new birth, you gave up your rights and you accepted His will and good plans for your life instead (Jeremiah 29:11). You will discover here in your wilderness that your opinion is not what God is interested in. He’s only interested in you, and it is His will that is important. We’re told from God’s Word that we are to willingly fall upon the Rock, Who is Jesus, and be broken and not wait for the Rock to fall on us.
“If My people which are called by My name will humble themselves...” (2 Chron.7:14). Most of us wait until the ‘right’ time, a better day to do that. We put off ‘falling on the Rock’because of the inconvienve and discomfort of it. And in our disobedience, the Rock ends up falling on us and we scratch our heads and wonder ‘what was that all about? What have I done to deserve this?’Am I talking to anybody?
But it is in this place that we must humble our hearts and throw ourselves upon the Rock of Ages, Jesus Christ our Lord and allow the Holy Spirit to tear down our carefully constructed walls. Those walls that have kept us separated from God and that most holy place. Those walls of self-righteousness and self-justified anger must come down. We built the wall up around us because we think sometimes that we know better than God what’s best for us.
This kind of prideful thinking will hindered you from going through the door of your opportunity for greatness in Him. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes to the Father but by Me” (John 14:6). Jesus said, “I am the Door.” He is the door that will lead you into the most holy place where you will commune and get to know your heavenly Father more intimately. Let us not hesitate one second to go through that most precious “Door” because Jesus is our untilmate destiny.
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ANOTHER LOOK AT THE OUTER COURT:
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I want to look again at the outer court because it’s here that the soul is in charge and you, as a spirit being are in obedience to it’s wants and desires. All of these things are not necessarily a benefit to you spiritually. Paul said that “all things were lawful to him but all things were not of benefit to him spiritually.” The same applies to us when it comes to certain wants and desires that have no eternal value for our lives. As stated earlier, in the outer court is where the young Christian is on the milk of the Word. The young baby can’t handle strong meat yet.
This is the place where you’re satisfied to go to church once a week, do your Christian duty and appease your conscience. The other six days are yours to fulfill your own agenda and run your life your way in the area of thoughts, speech and actions. But even in the outer court, sooner or later you will sense in your spirit that there is more available to you in God. And somewhere in the back of your mind is the knowing that to go after more in God, it’s going to cost you. Jesus said, “Count the cost.”
I know I’ve mentioned this before about the higher calling of call into that most holy place and how it requires the price of “self” on God’s altar of sacrifice to truly abide here. But often times, we don’t always hear everything thats spoken, although we may have been listening. Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Let us all set our minds and will to “have ears that hear what the Spirit of the Lord is sayying to us in this hour.
The reason you’re having thoughts that there is more in God to have, it’s simply because the Holy Spirit is beginning to cause a stirring in your spirit. He’s wooing you by the love of God and causing an unrest in your soul so you will move out of the place where you are now and follow Him higher. You’re being courted, if you will, by the goodness of God, You’re being extended an invitation to move closer to your heavenly Father in that most holy place.
If you choose to refuse the Holy Spirit’s invitation, does that mean He goes away and just gives up on you as a hopeless case? No, praise God! At another appointed time, He will once more extend the invitation to you and you will find yourself at this crossroads of decision that you were at before. The decision is yours but just as God said in Deut., “Choose life and blessing, that you may live and your seed.”
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THE HEARTS CRY:
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Over and above anything, God responds to the deep cries of our hearts, even when it‘s a silent cry. Often, we’re not even aware that we’re crying out to God concerning a certain area of our life. But the Creator of all things knows the depths of every person’s heart and He responds by His unfailing love and mercy. In the process of creating man, He created a place deep within our spirits that can only be filled with the presence of God Himself. If God is not allowed to fill this created place, it leaves a void in the depths of our being.
We can be aware of that void, that emptiness, though we may not realize that it is God that we need to fill that place and make us complete in Him. Sometimes, you may not understand the reason why you’re experiencing such unfulfillment in your soul. But God hears those sounds that we can’t hear. He hears the silent cry of your heart for Him. And when that place created in us especially for God is left empty, we will always try to fill it with other things. This is true for believer’s and nonbeliever’s alike, though each will go about filling that empty place perhaps in different ways.
We may think so often that we know what we need to bring the fulfillment our hearts cry out for and so we attempt to fill it ourselves. Time and time again, we may find that the very thing we thought would fit was about like trying to put a square peg into a round hole. It just didn’t work and the void is still there. Since this one thing didn’t work, you may try something else and something else, never finding the exact right thing to fit into that place of emptiness. That place in the center of your being that was created only for God. He’s the only One who can fit exactly right into that place and bring total joy and fulfillment. He’s the only One Who can bring you total love and peace. There is truly “fullness of joy in the presence of the Lord.”
In the outer court, many Christian’s still experience this emptiness because they’re not experiencing the fullness of God in their hearts and lives. Thus, you try to fill that emptiness with “busy work” for the church as well as secular things. These things, unknowingly can hinder you from coming into the fullness of God. It can be a hindrance to your moving toward that most holy place of communion with your Father God. Let us accept the Holy Spirit’s generous invitation to move up to the next level of faith and glory. We want to become men and women who are “after God’s own heart.”
Plain As Day Ministries
Shirley Williams
1-9-03
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
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