The Tabernacle

A few months ago, a colleague of ours wrote me an email. We were discussing our upcoming visit with her in North London. As she closed off her email she wrote, “In these days I am saying to the Western European Leaders, ‘LESS VISION, MORE PURITY.”

These words vibrated strongly in my spirit.

Holiness has been my meditations of late. The Lord keeps drawing me back to this theme, this idea, this part of who & what He is.

Holy means to seperate from everything else that is going around.

Holy is what God is. God will always distinguish himself from the spirit of the day. So in the Old Testament records, we see God presenting himself as a cloud in the day & fire in the night. HE is always contrary to the world.

Peter, the disciple & friend of Jesus wrote, “But as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.” (1 Pet 1:15) As a Jew, Peter knew what being ‘set apart & seperate from” looked like. Jews still stand out in a crowd today! It required of Peter to be, dress, eat & live in a way that was opposite to the world surrounding him.

For Noah, holiness looked like building a boat & dwelling in it for over a year when the world & its spirit was corrupt & in rebellion to the God who made it.

Holiness looked like the a cave in the wilderness when David was being hunted by a King who feared man more than God & ended up consulting witches rather than being led by the Spirit of God.

Holiness looked like the belly of a fish when Jonah sort to do his thing rather than God’s.

All through out the record of God with man holiness has required a set apartness, a seperation from the world.

In Numbers 16:9 a stunning revelation is given. Moses is speaking to the Levities who were part of the Priesthood. He says, “It is no small thing that God has called you OUT from the congregation of Israel to draw near to Him, to do the service of the Tabernacle & to minister to the people.”

Holiness will call us out. It will call us away. It will require of us to distinguish ourselves from everything that is going around.

The Early Fathers of our faith walked in this, hence their other name of the Desert Fathers. You see there is a process of salvation. Paul says, “work out your own salvation with fear & trembling.” ( Phil 2:12b)

Salvation says Dr Artef, a Coptic Priest walking in the way of the Early Fathers, “always requires a man of God who has the calling to enter into seasons of seclusion, fasting & prostration before our God, to wait on Him”.

There is an element of seclusion, of seperateness that relates to holiness. It always has been & always will.

What happens in the set apart places & times is that we are taken away from all that is in the world & our world. These moments, seasons & experiences squeeze out of us the spirit & ways of the world.

One walks very differently in a desert place.

A distance is created. Space is placed between us & the world. In a way we are preserved from what is normally around us.

In my own journey, the result is that is makes my heart very sensitive to God & to the constrasting world. In this place of no or little distraction we are invited into more of the fullness of God. A joining to God takes place after the removal of other things.

If we want to walk with God, it will require us to be where He is. Where He is will be opposite to the ways & mindsets of this world. Expect God to put you in contrary situations so He can be seperate & seen.

In every case when I have been with those who’ve sort holiness & yielded to the process of developing it, I have tasted & been in awe of a beauty that surpasses anything of the world.

All beauty is an expression of His holiness. For it is an expression of God’s nature in us that is not contaminated. Holiness reveals beauty.

God is restoring a royal priesthood who will minister to Him & to others in the beauty of His holiness.

My spirit continues to join in the cry, “Less Vision, More Purity.”

We all have a story.

A tale of triumph. Of tragedy. Pain. Glory. Intrigue.

My story is probably no different to yours. Its themes, it struggles the same, yet the way, the circumstances different. We all have our ashes. We all have our beauty, & we can all have joy.

What is the story that God is telling?

He is telling us something in these days. He is telling us something about himself, ourselves & of a greater story unfolding.

You see our stories, our personal tales of triumph & tragedy, weave into a larger story. This is part of the beauty & joy. This is part of community, of family, of Kingdom of God.

The story that God is telling, is really all about him. The irony is that it is not about us, but about who he is & what he can do.

Threads run thru the tapestry of our lives & they often begin when we are young. His nature shows its hand when we are young, very young.

There is a truth, a truth about God. Would you, would I, be prepared to live a journey to find this out?

The challenge of this journey that I embarked upon was that it had to be traveled his way, not mine.

This still remains the challenge. Perhaps even more so now than when I first begun.

In our story are answers. Answers for a generation that God is now forging. Answers of his glory, his majesty, his victory, his goodness.

There are declarations to be made. Revelations to be spoken out, triumphs to be had.

Your story matters. My story matters, because in them there is something important God is saying… and this is the point.