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I had a dream where I was looking up at a large billboard that was standing on the side of the road. I looked up and read the large letters that seemed to peel off the sign, pulling me towards it. The words stuck in my mind. They read:
“Now is the time to come unto Christ.”
“Now,” was emphasized… with urgency.
I remember a voice inside my head telling me to encourage everyone that I knew to come also.
And I woke up.
This stirred my thoughts…. I already believe in Christ, but the feeling meant more than just belief… He is at my door and knocking…. Have I opened it up so that He could walk in? Have I come to Him, or is he still trying to get to me?
Part of me feels that this entire time, I have just been speaking to him through the little window in the door. And that I still have this partition of wood standing between us? Have I truly let him in?
This again reminded me of “the circle”. (from the POST: The Hug)
My inner space, where, if cared for diligently, could be filled with the Holy Spirit, wherewith even Jesus can come and dwell with me also.
Solomon’s Temple gives a great description that helps to illustrate this. Where do we spend our time in Solomon’s Temple?
The outer court is likened to going to church. It is the place where we pay our tithes and offerings. It is the place where we spend time with the family. It is visiting the neighbors. It is the place where we socialize as a group in Christ. This is the court of the Gentiles…
I believe that this is where most of us are most of the time. We frequently walk into that court. We hang out for a while, and then we walk back out. And even though that is a good thing, we missed the center or focal point, and that is to go further…
Then there is the inner court. This is where we go when we read our scriptures and say our prayers… We might even take the sacrament in this space. We are getting closer to the lord, but we are still not yet in the place of greatest import.
Many times I feel that my attention is more bound to doing these things out of duty, and not really from my heart. It’s just something that I do, that I grew up with. It certainly has meaning, and sometimes I even feel the Holy Spirit, but it’s still not the bullseye. This is a better place to be over the court of the Gentiles, where I believe many of the good members still are.
This is like doing the Sunday Sabbath routine each week… We feel good that we can step into the inner court of the temple, but when church is over, I turn around and walk back out into the court of the Gentiles. I feel that in my entire life, I never get to the holy of holies and commune with God himself.
In ancient times, only the priest could enter the holiest place, and with that, they could only enter it once per year, and only after they had prepared and purified themselves so that they could enter.
There was a veil that separated them from God. And if they were not purified when entering, they would fall over dead… It was sometimes customary to wrap a rope around their leg as they would enter so that if they did not come back out, the other priests could pull on the rope to get the body back out from behind the veil.
After Jesus was crucified, the veil was rent in twain, opening up the way for anyone to enter. No longer was it only a high priest who could enter, but it still would require us to be clean.
The temple of Solomon is a blueprint of all the statuses that entertain in our lives. Non-believers never even enter the court of the Gentiles, and most of the believers never go any farther.
Jesus opened the way for each of us to go further. We create our own Holy of Holies.
Our holiest place should be the circle that we draw around ourselves. It become our Holy of Holies. It is the circle in which we reside. We create it by drawing an imaginary one around us and everywhere we go we are always within this space…
We purify ourselves by what we let into that circle and by what we keep out of that circle. We seek Him, our hearts want to be with him, and we keep him in our thoughts wherever we go. This can become the holiest place on earth. We keep it sanctified so we feel the Holy Spirit around us always, and if we are a fit vessel, then Jesus can come to us and we can sup together.
We don’t go into places that would affect our circle.
For me, I don’t want to just talk with the lord through the little window that’s built into my door anymore. I want him to step through the door, and into my circle, and sit with me and talk. I want to move out of the court of the Gentiles and move past the inner court, I want to always be in the Holy of Holies, where I can stand at the throne of God.
I believe that this is what the message on the billboard meant. “Now is the time to come unto Christ.” Open the door and literally let him in.