Pushing Back the Curtain

Hebrews 10-Part 3
And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.  Hebrews 10:17


LET IT GLOW

Look at our key verse. It's not that God forgets anything, for He remains omniscient, but because He no longer remembers our sins against us. As a Christian, Christ has taken our sin upon Himself, so the Father will not hold it against us who have turned to Christ's redemption (1Peter 2:24).
(Liberty Bible Commentary)

Now is that a promise? Thank the Lord my sins are under the blood! How about yours?
Thank You Lord that You choose to forgive and forget my sins. Shouldn't I do the same for others?


LET IT GROW

Verse 19 says in NLT, And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven's Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus.

Verse 22 says in NLT, Let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ's blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

I couldn't skim over these verses. They have some important things to say to us. Actually, it  reminds me of my childhood. My sister, who is 10 years older than I am, and I shared a bedroom in the back of the house before she left for college. Between our bedroom and our brother's bedroom hung a thick curtain for many years. (Later a folding door replaced the curtain.) It provided privacy for us to change clothes. It  seperated our rooms. It was the same as a closed door. We pushed back the curtain when we entered our bedroom. That makes me wonder if there is a curtain covering  my heart that needs pushing back so Jesus can enter into it.

Verse 19 tells us that we can enter the Holy of Holies, behind the veil, the place where only the High Priest could enter only once a year on the Day of Atonement, with blood offered for his sins and those of the people. We can actually enter there? How can we can enter? With boldness, the King James Version says.

Boldness means free and fearless confidence, cheerful courage, assurance.
 Is this how I enter into God's presence? If not, then why? Probably because sin is present.

A.W.Tozer, in his book, The Pursuit of God, said:

Ransomed men need no longer pause in fear to enter the Holy of Holies. God wills that we should push on into His presence and live our whole life there. This is to be known to us in conscious experience. It is more than a doctrine to be held; it is a life to be enjoyed every moment of every day.

The greatest fact of the tabernacle was that Jehovah was there; a Presence was waiting within the veil. At the heart of the Christian message is God Himself waiting for His redeemed children to push in to conscious awareness of His presence. 

Behind the veil is God. We are in God and God is in us. This God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is eternal, immutable, omniscient, love and mercy, righteousness, and holiness. No comparisons or figures will avail to express it. Only fire can give even a remote conception of it. In fire He appeared at the burning bush; a pillar of fire through the long wilderness journey. The fire that glowed between the wings of the cherubim in the Holy Place was called the Sihekinah glory. He came at Pentecost as a fiery flame and rested upon each disciple. In the deep spirit of a man the fire must glow or his love is not the true love of God. 

With the veil removed by the rending of Jesus' flesh, with nothing on God's side to prevent us from entering, why do we tarry without? We grow old and tired in the outer  courts of the tabernacle. What hinders us? Coldness? This veil remains there shutting out the light and hiding the face of God from us. It is the veil of our fleshly, fallen nature living on, unjudged within us, uncrucified and unrepudiated. It's a close-woven veil of self-life; the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us; the hyphenated sins of the human spirit. They are not something we do, but something we are.
To be sepecific, the self-sins are self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-admiration, self-love, and a host of others like them. (God has done it all for us.) Our part is to yield and trust. We must confess, forsake, repudiate the self-life, and then reckon it crucified.

On which self-altar do I need to die? On which altar do you need to die? Will we push back the curtain, remove the veil of our heart and allow Jesus access to all rooms? I know He needs to do some house cleaning right now in my heart after reading what Tozer said back in 1948.
Am I aware of God's presence in my life? Do I let the true love of God glow in me? Will I open up the access to all of my heart to Jesus? I want to be selfless, having more of Jesus in me.


LET IT GO

Let go of self.

Push back the curtain of my heart, opening it up to Jesus.

Surrender all.