In my last teaching (SEE HERE), we discussed the tabernacle, the torn veil, the altars, God as our sacrifice, all that was moved just to ensure we have a tent of meeting.
But really, what is the power of this meeting place? Why the sense of urgency to prioritize intimacy?
I keep shouting to us, "Intimacy is the order of priests", but why?
What really happens when we draw near?
I will be taking time to break this down to us here.
One of the places I really love to start my teaching from is the beginning.
If you know me well, you will know I love the Old testament and it is largely because The Word was there in the beginning. If we look well, we will see Him
Exodus 25:8 NKJV
[8]And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.
Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them!
The call to intimacy always begins with God. This is where it starts from; God's desires!
From the beginning of time till now, the deepest yearning of the Father has been to dwell among men. Not visit. Dwell.
John 1:14 NKJV
[14] And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
If we look at the concordance, when the Word became flesh in John 1:14, the Greek says: “He tabernacled among us.” Christ became the tabernacle now inside of everyone of us.
This idea of the tabernacle is not just an old testament idea, it is an eternal desire.
The same desire God had in Eden, down to the cross, to the indwelling of the Spirit and even when He will come back for His people.
God's message has always been the same: I want to be with you.
Now here is the tricky part of this:
Because we see over and over that it is God expressing desire to be with us, it is very easy to assume that God is the sole beneficiary of this arrangement. Maybe that's why we don't rate it like that too, we come if and when we like. So this is where I will start from;
1. The Tent of Meeting is for our Survival and Sustenance
Man was not made to function independently of God.
If man is an extension of God then He needs to be connected to God to function properly.
"That I may dwell among them", is not because God is company-starved (because sometimes I think we think we are doing God o), it is God recognizing your inability to function outside of Him and helping you.
I mentioned previously that Israel had left Egypt and there had to be a meet point between God and them to sustain them until they got to their destination.
Intimacy is for sustenance, it is for the journey.
I need you to pause and imagine Israel without God being with them;
They'd not have made it out of Egypt.
Let me get ahead of myself, the reason some of us are struggling in various areas of our lives today is because we have abandoned intimacy. We have abandoned the system that helps us live outside of Eden.
Genesis 2:15 NKJV
“Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.”
Genesis 2:8 NKJV
“The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed.”
Eden was God's original idea of living/dwelling with man.
Man sinned and fell from this natural habitat and is thrown into the earth to fend for himself. But God looks at man and sees that this one cannot do anything outside of Me, he has to stay connected to survive.
The secret place is the place of survival.
John 15:5 NIV
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
If you remain in me,
If you dwell here and I too dwell with you,
If you keep to the tent of meeting,
If you stay true to the secret place,
If you place value on Intimacy,
You will bear much fruit!
There is a life of abundance that flows from you and the part I want us to note the most:
For apart from Me, you can do Nothing!
Outside of the tent of meeting, you can do nothing!
Please don't take these words as ordinary, scripture means exactly what scriptures says,
Outside of dwelling, you can do nothing!
You may try o, but it will amount to nothing.
Exodus 33:7
“Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of meeting. And it came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle of meeting which was outside the camp.”
Everyone who sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle!
You are looking to God for anything?
It is in the place of dwelling.
See, the Israelites had been delivered from Egypt, but without the meeting place, they had no direction,
No intimacy,
No guidance,
In fact, no manna and divine provision.
We are not just people who have received life, we are people meant to live from it.
Romans 8:6 NKJV
“For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”
The secret place makes for your peace, fullness of life is from here.
Galatians 5:25 TPT
“If the Spirit is the source of our life, we must also allow the Spirit to direct every aspect of our lives.”
If we say we have gotten this life from the spirit then we must look to Him to sustain it.
And God has provided a sustenance model which is the tent of meeting. Nothing lives outside here.
Two days ago, I saw a copy from my team at work for a case study:
"Greatness is within"
And I just burst into laughter in the Spirit.
We want to do great things, we long to be significant,
But we forget:
It is not the desire for greatness that makes a man great, it is the presence of the Great One.
It is God that is the greatness within.
How do you do great things without the influence of the One who is Great?
Where will the atom of greatness come from? How is it forged?
How does it come to be? When the main ingredient is missing?
Greatness is in you because God is in you.
But the God in you must be hosted.
He must be fellowshipped with, He must be met with.
This is how we harness the "greatness"
A huge percentage of the world does not reach their maximum potential because we have not found the tent of meeting.
Again,
It is God who is great,
It is God who gives purpose,
It is God who sustains!
There is no living a life of purpose outside the One who authored it.
Where will the strength come from?
Where will the breath, the direction and the clarity come from?
In fact, how will you even know the purpose?
It's not by attending motivational speaker masterclass o
John 6:57 NKJV
“As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.”
This is the design for how we live!
By feeding on Jesus (I explained the table of showbread in the last teaching and what it means)
You feed and live
You live life in its fullness.
We need to stop thinking that it is God who benefits from our secret place meetings with Him.
It is not a favor to Him when we pray, it is your life that depends on it.
It is you that needs the secret place to survive!
God didn’t set up the altar for Himself, He set it up for you.
So you can survive.
So you don’t burn out.
So your soul has a place to rest.
So you can connect and power your purpose.
When David was saying in Psalm 132:4-5 that, he will not sleep or rest until He found God a resting place, flood did not carry God's bed in Heaven where He is seated o.
David knew, it was David that couldn't survive.
We sing this song:
“You didn’t want heaven without us, so Jesus You brought heaven down…”
But maybe it’s deeper than that,
Maybe it’s not just that He didn’t want heaven without us,
Maybe it’s that He saw we wouldn’t survive outside of heaven.
It’s like putting a fish on land or asking a bird to swim without wings.
Take a fish out of water, and it will flap for a while,
But it will die trying.
And that’s some of us o;
Flapping. Trying. Pressing. Fainting.
Because we are attempting to do life outside the Presence,
Outside the very thing we were created to live in.
What we are courting is death.
You and I, We were never designed to function outside the Presence.
The Tent of Meeting is not a luxury, it is not optional.
It’s not a spiritual extra reserved for the “deep believers"
It is YOUR lifeline.
“In Him we live…”
Not just visit on Sundays,
Not just speak of when we’re in crisis,
NO.
In Him we LIVE
And MOVE
And HAVE OUR BEING.
Because this is how we survive and this is how we are sustained.
As we go through our days, I want us to look at our study and prayer time in this manner; as a means of survival.
Write it on your stick notes,
Paste it everywhere around you:
I cannot survive without intimacy
Intimacy is for my survival
Intimacy is for my sustenance
This conversation reminds me of when I was in Macedonia, I had stick notes everywhere that said: Rẹ̀mí if you don't pray, you will die.
It probably sounds like an extreme to you but it was and is truth.
Outside of this template, I will die.
Remind yourself of it until your body understands it.
Make it into wallpapers,
I am telling you: if you don't pray, you will die.
This is not even to instil fear.
You think if prayer is not a non-negotiable the devil will bother to stop you from praying or distract you?
Everything is fighting for your attention; from life wàhálà, to your phone, internet and other things.
You think it is water gun fight?
It is a fight to bring the fish outside of water to dry land because Satan knows that the fish will die outside its natural habitat.
Stay in your natural habitat
Stay in the secret place! It is for your survival and sustenance.
I will stop here for now, we will continue in my next teaching.
I hope we've all been blessed by the teaching.
Also if you have questions, please send them HERE, and I will answer.
Until next time,
Remain blessed.
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