Lessons From the Jewish Temple

There the holiest of all was the central point, the essential thing. It was all dark, secret, hidden, until the time of the unveiling came. It demanded and received the faith of the priest and the people.

The holiest of all within me, too, is unseen and hidden, a thing for faith alone to know and deal with. Let me, as I approach the Holy One, bow before Him in deep and lowly reverence. Let me there say that I believe what He says, that His Holy Spirit, God, one with the Father and the Son, has entered in, and even now makes His abode within me.

I will meditate and be still until something of the overwhelming glory of the truth falls upon me and faith begins to realize that I am His temple and that in the secret place He sits upon His throne. As I yield myself in silent meditation and worship day by day, surrendering and opening my whole being to Him, He will in His divine, loving, living power shine into my consciousness the light of His presence.

As this thought fills the heart, the faith of the indwelling, though hidden, presence will influence; the holy place will be ruled from the most holy. The world of consciousness in the soul, with all its thoughts and feelings, its affections and purposes, will come and surrender itself to the holy power that sits within on the throne. Amid the terrible experience of failure and sin, a new hope will dawn.

Though I may have earnestly sought to, I could not keep the holy place for God, because He keeps the most holy for Himself-if I give Him the glory due His name, in the holy worship of the inner temple. He will send forth His light and His truth through my whole being and, through mind and will, reveal His power to sanctify and to bless. Through the soul, coming ever more securely under His rule, His power will work out even into the body.

With passions and appetites within, with every thought brought into subjection, the hidden Holy Spirit will through the soul perpetrate ever deeper into the body. Through the Spirit the deeds of the body will die, and the river of water that flows from under the throne of God and the Lamb will go through the body with its cleansing and quickening power.

O friend, do believe that you are the temple of the living God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you! You have been sealed with the Holy Spirit; He is the mark, the living assurance of your sonship and your Father’s love.

If, until now, this has been a thought that has brought you little comfort, see if the reason is not here: You sought for Him in the holy place, amid the powers and services of your inner life that come within your vision, and you could hardly discern Him there-so you could not appropriate the comfort and strength the Comforter was meant to bring.

No, my brother, not there, not there. Deeper down, in the secret place of the Most High-there you will find Him. There faith will find Him.

And as faith worships in holy reverence before the Father, and the heart trembles at the thought of what it has found, wait in holy stillness on God to grant you the mighty working of His Spirit, wait in holy stillness for the Spirit, and be assured He will, as God, arise and fill His temple with His glory.

And then remember, the veil was but for a time. When the preparation was complete, the veil of the flesh was rent. As you yield your soul’s inner life to the inmost life of the Spirit, as the traffic between the most holy and the holy becomes more true and unbroken, the fullness of the time will come in your soul.

In the power of Him, in whom the veil was rent that the Spirit might stream forth from His glorified body, there will come to you, too, an experience in which the veil shall be taken away and the most holy and the holy shall be one. The hidden glory of the secret place will stream into your conscious daily life: the service of the holy place will all be in the power of the eternal Spirit.

Andrew Murray (1828-1917) was an ordained minister in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa and the author of numerous devotional works that have become classics, including Abide in Christ, Absolute Surrender and Waiting on God. Adapted from The Spirit of Christ by Andrew Murray, (Bethany House Publishers). Used by permission.