The spirit of a man is the lamp of the LORD,
Searching all the inner depths of his heart. Prov. 20:27

WARNING YOU MAY HAVE TO THINK AS YOU READ THIS!

Light is an amazing substance. It has weight, volume, density, mass, speed, and can be either a wave or a particle. Light is very important in the Tabernacle and the two Rooms of Mystery within the Sanctuary. Light was the beginning substance of Creation. The way, order and manner in which God created the Heavens and the Earth actually foretold many things such as the coming Tabernacle. It also foretold the coming of the Messiah, but you have to unfold the secret to see that prophecy. Those secrets are not clear to those that need eye salve. The Tabernacle is a type and shadow of Creation and found within the tabernacle are Secrets, which are Keys to understanding not only God, but also HIS WAYS. There are many Secret Keys, here and in the next posting I will write about seven of them.

A SECRET KEY IS LIGHT
One of the Secrets is the Key of Light. In Creation you will find three kinds of light – that’s right three! The first Light eternally exists in God, who the Apostle John described as light. The second light was the light God spoke into existence when He said, “Let there be light!” From that light everything else was created. Subsequently God then, on the fourth day of Creation, created the third light – the Sun and all other Suns (stars), planets, moons, galaxies, and other entities that exist in the universe.

That is the order in which God created light. However, you have journeyed through the Tabernacle in reverse order. You came from the third light (Sun) that shown on you in the Outercourt. You are currently standing in the covered tent of the Sanctuary before the second Light (Lampstand) and you will soon procede to the third Light (Mercy seat) found in the Holy of Holies.

The first light was Eternally in existence, the second light was spoken into existence, the third light was created into existence.

A SECOND SECRET KEY
A second secret Key is found in the combination of oil and light and the resulting dynamic of combustion. You will find this combination in the very beginning of creation.

In creation, you have the Holy Spirit of God (oil) hovering (wind or winnowing) and waiting over the darkness of the unformed, void, Earth. Likewise, in the Tabernacle the Oil is waiting in the Lampstand. In creation, God said, “Let there be light!” and from those words, the light (the second light) from which all things were created came into being. The Lampstand of the Sanctuary was lit by God speaking Light, which was the spark that ignited the flame of the Lampstand. In other words God lit the Lampstand.

Remember, the first, uncreated, Eternal light is found in God alone. God spoke the second light into existence. In like manner, God also spoke the light into being that lit the Oil filled Lampstand in the Sanctuary. The rule is, no oil = no light, because light is fueled by Oil – yet oil needs the spark of light to fuel the light. That is where God comes in.

Thus, you might say, that it was the presence of the Holy Spirit on the Earth that fueled the light that God spoke into existence. Again, this is the second light and from that light the bulk of creation commenced. Only the dark and formless Earth preceded the spoken light. Please note that the spoken light did not precede the Eternal Light. At this point it might become a little confusing if you do not keep the order of the Lights straight.

A THIRD SECRET KEY
A third Secret Key is to understand the parallel between Jesus, Creation, and the Tabernacle, which foretold of Him. The focal point of that Key seems too simple and you might want to brush this off and race on to the next Key – please do not do that. You will not get any of the Keys if you do not get this one. So here it is, “Jesus is the Light of the world.” I told you it would seem too simple. So slow down and follow the trail. The prophets foretold that the Messiah, a great Light, would come into darkness. This spiritually paralleled the darkness that covered the Earth at Creation, and how light entered it.

Jesus said the Holy Spirit of God within Him did all the miracles he did. So here is the trail once again - light (spark) comes to Oil and an explosion (dunamis) happens - this is what happened in Jesus, Light and oil combusted. This is how the miracles He did happened. Did you ever wonder how it was that Jesus created all things when the Scripture states that it was the Holy Spirit hovering over all the Earth (Col. 1:16; Gen. 1:2)? So Jesus brought light to an Earth that was dwelling in total Spiritual Darkness – just as He did when Creation first began. And God once again said, “Let there be Light.”

Enough deep thinking for now, I’ll write on the other four secret Keys in my next post.

Blessings,
John Paul

Science has long known that light is a purifier and the light of the Menorah before you is just that. It is the “eye salve” that Jesus told the Laodicean church it needed to buy so they could see. Yes, God wants you to “see”, but there is a cost. That cost is “honesty” -  the Laodicean church said they were rich, but they were poor, they said were clothed, but they were naked, and they said they could see, but they were blind or unperceptive to spiritual transitions.

BRUTAL HONESTY
In order to proceed further into the Sanctuary and these two rooms of Mystery you will have to be brutally honest with yourself. Notice, I did not say brutally honest with God – He already knows. However, honesty with our selves is often quite hard. But, the only way to have the cracks sealed, as I mentioned in my last post is through honesty.

Honesty seals cracks and opens you to the oil of the Spirit. You have more than likely found that the Spirit will allow others to rub you the wrong way – that is part of the polishing I spoke of. You see, the cracks came from you. What!!! Yes, others rubbed you wrong, but it is your response that created the cracks that you carry. It is your bitterness, your unforgiveness, your anger, not theirs.  The cost for crack sealant is that you will have to give all these interior furnishings to God in order to pay for the eye salve. That is why the Holy Spirit will allow others to rub you wrong again – it gives you a chance to respond correctly and erase the crack.

Each correct response removes a crack and polishes the container. The container is you. That is precisely why it is necessary to be brutally honest. Honesty removes scales from your eyes. Only with the removal of those scales can you see why the Spirit allowed the event to happen. Honesty is an important ingredient in the eye salve of Heaven.

CHAOS AND THE DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
Honesty turns Chaos, which is the disorganized state of matter into Cosmos, which is the organized state of matter (Webster’s Definition). God allows this because there is no other way to Cosmos. Thus, it is the ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ that prepares you for the Light of the Candle. It is the valleys of life that prepare you for the Mountain of the Lord. It is the storm that prepares you for the miracle. It is Pentecost that prepared the disciples for something entirely unheard of – the church. In many ways, God’s ways are anti-logical and higher than the Heavens above ours. That is why I have “Divine Chaos” offered here. It really is for your good.

THE COST OF STILLNESS
Stillness is the final cost or preparation for infilling of Oil. It is difficult to pour anything into a moving container. Thus the disciple had to wait

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in the upper room. About 120 people crammed into a small room did not allow for much movement. Stilling your self is hard, but stilling your soul is even harder. It took ten days for the disciples to accomplish it. In this stillness the oil can reach your spirit. This is where your spirit and God’s Spirit become one (1 Corinthians 16:7).

PREPARATION FOR INFILLING
Once you manage to do this, you are prepared for the infilling of the Oil of the Spirit. Warning, this may be anti-cultural to you and may require you going on a personal retreat to avoid all the distractions that you have surrounded yourself with. You may find stillness frightening as some use various noises as a security blanket.

When you become honest, and have stilled your soul - the infilling will come. When it does you will be ready for the igniting. However, there are seven ways the Oil is to touch you; seven branches that must be filled and once again you will be faced with issues of time. Time combined with the rubbing against your grain by others become the main ingredients that comprise a little thing called patience. But, I sure none of you need that – do you?

You do not have to touch fire to get hot. Just stand close to it. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. There are seven facets of the Oil of God, and seven branches of the Lampstand. They must be filled before the flame comes. What that means to you is too significant to ignore.

Blessings,
John Paul

“The spirit of a man is the lamp of the LORD,
Searching all the inner depths of his heart.” Prov. 20:27

I mentioned in my last posting that the light you are standing in front of is adding something to you – that something is light. Before you proceed, it is good to step back and take note that this is the first time in this journey through the tabernacle that something has been given or added to you.

THE PLACES OF REMOVAL
Up to this point each piece of furniture has removed something from you. The Brazen Altar removed your sin, the Brazen Laver removed the stains, spots, and blemishes of that sin, and the Table of Showbread daily removes affliction and infirmity. However, here under the scrutiny of the Light, all that is left to be dealt with are the small cracks from the pain that darkness has dealt you.

Cracks aren’t removed, they are sealed, polished and the vessel is now made new. Cracks in you life such as, bitterness, envy, malice, anger, jealousy, wrath, and others are being rubbed out by the merciful hand of the Lord. As this happens, you are being totally renovated, regenerated and made new. Containers that have cracks leak and therefore have to be sealed before they are filled. This ‘sealing’ is the final step to becoming a container of His glory. “Christ in you the hope of glory,” is more than a New Testament proverb, it is a reality – or will be if you do not quit.

STARTING THE ADDITION PROCESS
From now on nothing will be taken away, and many assets will be added to you. Your hunger has driven you as you have made your way across the room to the Lampstand or candlestick of the Lord. The seven flames from the candlestick before you are pouring light into your eyes and entering your spirit. God is light and this light before you is only lit by Him and therefore this Light is from His Light. This is what the Psalmist was referring to when he was inspired to pen, “In Your light we see light” Psa. 36:9b.

THE FUEL FOR LIGHT
So the first attribute that is added to you is light. However, light does not last forever; just ask the five foolish virgins (MT. 25). It takes oil, and oil is the Holy Spirit. The five wise virgins took an additional amount of oil with them, just in case they ran out. You must always seek to be ‘being’ filled with oil. Light reveals, but oil empowers and you long to be empowered.

It was the oil of the Holy Spirit that empowered Jesus to do the works of the Father (MT. 12:28). Yet, oil that is just sitting in a vessel does little until it is ignited by fire. This is precisely what happened on the day of Pentecost. Though they did not know exactly why they were to stay in the upper room, for ten days the disciples sat there ‘being’ filled with oil, then – wham, the wind of God came and brought fire with it.

THE NEED FOR THE FLAME
In a nano second of time, each person in the room had fire above their heads. The oil was present, the fire was lit and they were now empowered to do the works of the Father. The explosive nature of the Holy Spirit had done its work! Perhaps this gives new meaning to what Jesus said, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.” Just as God ignited the Lampstand, He ignited the oil in His disciples – He will ignite you as well. Thus it was said by John the Baptist that Jesus would “baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with Fire” (Matthew 3:11).

HOW MUCH IS FULL?
So, I can hear you saying, “But I already have the Holy Spirit.” So did Jesus when the Spirit drove him into the wilderness. He had just been baptized by John, and the Holy Spirit came upon Him like a Dove out of Heaven. However, it wasn’t until Jesus returned from the forty days of fasting and the temptation of Satan, that it was written, “Jesus returned in the power of the Holy Spirit” (Luke 4:14). Do you currently have that type of power?

Perhaps it is time for you to passionately desire a greater measure of the Holy Spirit of the Living God. Perhaps the role of the Holy Spirit in the Life of Jesus and in you has been underestimated? Perhaps it is your lack of oil and fire that keeps you from doing the very things you long to do? Perhaps you have lost the understanding of what being “filled with the power of the Spirit” means? There are a lot of “perhaps’s” – far too many to cover here. But, you do not have to know them all to get the fire ignited again.

Maybe you aren’t too sure how to get more oil and how to get the fire ignited?  Be at peace, standing here, you are closer than you might think.

Blessings,

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John Paul

Absorption, these two Rooms of Mystery, require absorption in order to complete the Transition to Transformation. Far to many enter these rooms only to ‘observe.’ When this happens you usually hear yourself saying sentences such as, “Why did everyone think God was present tonight?” Or, “What makes them think they are so spiritual?” Or, even asking things like, “When is God going to speak to me?” These are just a few of the ‘blame shifters’ observers are identified by. These are sentences uttered so that all will know that you are not the problem.

WHOSE TO BLAME
For you to go further, blame shifting, which has been around since Adam in the Garden, will have to cease. In these Rooms of Mystery, you will learn to accept the fact that you are where you are, because of the choices you made. Only then will you recognize the “moment of choice” and begin to make better choices. Why am I talking about choices when I have been helping you walk through the Tabernacle? Because, every step you take from here on into the next room, becomes more important. You will soon be learning the reality that you make your choice and then your choice makes you. Unbeknownst to you, you are about to make a very important choice.

If you have been following this blog for long you know you are on a journey of transition to transformation through the Tabernacle. You are presently in the first covered room of the “Mountain of the Lord” or Sanctuary. In fact, you are standing in front of the Menorah or Lampstand. So …..

THE LIGHT IN THE EYE
No one really knows the actual dimensions of the Lampstand, its size was not stated in Scripture. However, most believe the Lampstand was just high enough for the flame to be eye level to the priest. In this way the light shone in the eyes of the priest to both illumine his vision and examine his heart. This was what Jesus was referring to when He said, “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” Matthew 6:22-23

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ENLIGHTENMENT
The Lampstand was to enlighten you through your eye and by doing so you would become full of light. It is this light that others will see. This is not a metaphor, it is a reality and as such, to the degree you believe – you will see and be enlightened with the light of life. It is this light that will be seen by others, whether they are cognizant of it or not.

Picture what this room would look like if the Lampstand was not shining. That is what the world would like if you and others were not radiating the Light that has now been imparted to you. This is what is meant by the Apostle John, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” John 1:4-5. When Jesus came into the world there was very little spiritual light … it was a pretty dark place.

God was the one who originally ignited the flame in the Lampstand and the priests were to never let that flame go out. You might say the light of God from the next room provided the light in this room.

You might even say that Jesus, the Light of the world came forth from the bosom (Holy of Holies) of the Father, who is light, and here you are standing before Him.

What Grace He has shown us, what grace He has given.
Blessings,
John Paul