The Tabernacle Blog

This is a Christian Blog space specifically for people to write about their experiences with God in set apart Tabernacle spaces (‘modern day spaces’ like the Tabernacle of David or Tabernacle of Moses.)

Our desire is that this space would be a blessing & safe place for you to read and write what God is saying/showing. There are already some wonderful heart reflections and revelations here.

We have four categories:

My Tabernacle Experience: This is for blogging some personal experience in ‘Tabernacle’ places

Tabernacle at Home: This is for blogging your experience of setting up such spaces yourself. Many are the experiences all around the world.

Tabernacle Discussion: This is for blogging on topics and discussing about the Tabernacle. Please feel free to introduce a topic for discussion. ie. The Tabernacle of David, Old Covenant vs New Covenant.

Revelations about God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit: A place for bloggin your revelations about God, in Tabernacle spaces or from the Word or wherever. We love talking about how big, good and wonderful He is!

Enjoy reading and getting a sense of what God is up to here. Feel free to add your own contribution or comment on what has already been written.

If you would like another category opened then contact us and let us know www.all4him.org/contact/

Either browse by category or just read down this page to go in Date order. Please enjoy and add your own revelations.

To subscribe RSS, to this page go to www.TabernacleBlog.All4Him.org/feed/

We are excited to let you know that Helen has just released the first of the Experiencing the Presence of God series as a downloadable ON_LINE course.

This and new courses can be found at all4him.thinkific.com
We have been teaching this series live now for over 5 years and peoples connection with God and their understanding of their connection with God has been hugely increased.

So please Bless yourself and enrol in a course and safely discover more.

Mark

Pray with Simplicity “And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat? “Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace. “The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don’t fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. Like this: (The Lord’s Prayer) Matt 6:5-9 The Message.

I have just come from sitting with my wife listening & watching a session of worship from Bethel church in California then a sermon from Pastor Kris.

As I have been thinking during it and now after it I am renewed in my confidence that nothing is more important than getting back to where we started, I believe that our model of what our Christianity is supposed to be all about is Adam and Eve in the garden walking and talking with God in the cool of the evening. God’s original created order, Intimacy, not awkward, not loud and aggressive, but something so right, so oh this is so what I want to be doing right now and my heart is just singing and free. Actually my heart is aching right now as I think of this as due to our current living situation we currently don’t have yet a special space set aside ‘a Tabernacle’ where I can go and so quickly and easily just hang out with God where we can just ‘be’ together, to chat to have him stroke and calm my soul, to know peace. His Peace. This is only our second night here so I suppose I can give myself a break. :-}
Anyway like just then we can get so complicated, “but my circumstances”, “but I need this”, “first I need to do this”. No, as Jesus showed us in the story of the prodigal son, at any point we can RUN back to the OPEN arms of Father God. Luke 15:11-32 This is God’s desire that we would KNOW Him and therefore know that we can so Yes go to Him and Know Him and Know His peace… Hmm I am very aware here that words are just so not cutting it, human language can not convey what it is to experience God, to sit with Him, to hang with Him, to feel His pleasure, to know His peace, heck to know that He loves me and accepts me just as I am.

Nothing is more important than this, no thing that I can do no thing that I can say, no thing nothing is more important than this. As I ponder this I reflect on conversations that I have had where people have told me how they spend time with God so that they can do ministry, so they are empowered, so they know better what to do. Well this may contain truth, but intimacy to GET something to fill your own needs goes by another name. I’m talking about hanging with God for Gods sake, for the sake of the relationship. Just to hang out. When you can manage to drop the agenda, or the religious benefits and just want to hang out with Jesus as a friend and let happen what happens then I think we are getting close. Hmm maybe we could even let Him direct the conversation.

I have written before about prophetic trips that we feel the Lord has asked us to go on. Recently we went away camping for the weekend. Helen & JM had picked this spot & I had felt the Lord indicate to us that this was to be a prophetic trip, in that He wanted us to take His presence there. We went to Bonney Lake State Park, due East of Denver just a few miles from the Kansas/ Colorado border.

After we had arrived and set up our tent, the neighbouring camper came over and asked if we had a radio. He then went on to tell us that he had been listening to his and that there was a Tornado about 15 miles away over the border and a hail storm coming our way with golf ball sized hail. He was considering leaving. Well we had just weathered a hail storm at our house in Denver and we had $17,500 dollars damage in just half an hour. The thought of that in a tent wasn’t too attractive!

So we sought the Lord as to whether we should pack up and go? (Although I don’t know to where as we were hours from anywhere.) But we felt Him say to stay, so we hopped into our very thin feeling tent and tried to get to sleep. The wind was howling through the trees and there was rain being blown into the tent, but after some time and lots of prayers we got to sleep. The Lord had spoken to us about taking His presence out to the border, in a Prophetic act to stretch out the pegs of the Tabernacle if you will, from what He had been establishing here in Denver, there were massive thunder storms both nights, so the atmosphere was certainly responding! The second night there was so much rain that we nearly couldn’t get out on the gravel roads as the surface had broken through and we were driving in thick sticky mud. Anyway I had a real sense that we were driving the stakes of what we had done here with the Tabernacle out to the border, so we also drove the few miles out across the Kansas border on the main interstate and visited an old dying US country town. Then a few days later we drove to Breckenridge which is towards the other border (West), to go for a hike with great friends there. I feel the Lord has sealed things East to West. Go God, I certainly don’t fully understand but please use us as you will and achieve your goals here.

We began our Tabernacle journey hosting God’s presence in our home now over a year ago. The journey began in our loungeroom- a very central, ‘public’ space in our home. He was teaching us about abiding in His presence, remaining in Him, not visiting. It was a wonderful season and we were suprised by how many times people commented about this room, children would naturally flock there. It was often the first place people would sit when visiting. The element of sacrafice giving the Lord this section of our loungeroom was in hein sight, very small.

Last August/September period Holy Spirit spoke cleary to my husband and I about clearing our garage and moving the Tabernacle “corner” (of our loungeroom) into the large space of our double garage… I was not working at this time so my husband had been supporting us and paying off our house with just his income. Finances were tight. Because the Lord had been so direct with us we got cleaning and clearing and painting and carpeting the garage downstairs very quickly.

The Lord provided so well through this time and we soon had a new door fitted, carpet layed and window coverings. For months the room sat mostly very empty. Aside from an arm chair and a stereo that were given to us for the space, the space lay very neutral with not much colour at all. It was an amazing time having more space set aside to explore the Lord’s presence. There were times the space was not visited very often through the weeks, but when the Lord drew us there, His grace, His awesome presence was palpable. Stuff moved around in our lives, sin confessed, healing, manifestations of worship in ways we have not seen before. It was a time of letting go of seasons gone by and being brave to step into the new God was calling us to embrace.

To our children, this place was as a class room- learning how to be with Jesus. We too have learnt from them and seeing their abandoned joy before Him helps one understand why Jesus wanted the little ones to come to Him.

All the while, the emptiness, the plain appearance, lack of beauty in the space made me wonder… I knew it was a work in progress and yet I did not have a clear sense of where the space was going or what He wanted in there further than the basic shell of it. I was waiting for His direction, decorative and otherwise! The wait went for months.

This last two weeks the Lord has called me there daily. His presence seems to be pursuing me. He comes to me and I find myself yearning for Him so deeply. I love His chase -everything about Him. It’s always awe inspiring to witness God’s heart moved by our obedience. It’s a humbling thing to be rewarded by the King’s presence.

About a week ago, we prayed to God in response to our pastor asking us if we want the space opened to the church congregation we attend. Feeling a release from Father we told the pastor God says “yes”.

The other day I went to take the first sip of my morning coffee when I was quite interrupted “do you want to do coffee with me?” “YES!” so off I went, coffee in hand, to be with Him in His space. When I was in there, I emptied myself to worship Him when I was shocked by His voice again. He began downloading to me some more information about what He wanted in His space. I saw red, sheer curtain, blue blankets and patterned cushions. Colour! My awareness went to corner and I very quickly had a picture of a plant- it was very specific- large, dark green leaves, a burgundy coloured pot and sitting on a plant stand. I knew it to be God showing me His choice as it was not something I would have chosen myself. I would not have known where to start looking for this plant ensemble so I asked Him. Within seconds the Lord spoke “Heidleberg” so off I went, piling the kids into the back seat, we drove to a nursery I knew of in Heidleberg. I walked in and out of this shop as nothing seemed close to what I believed God showed me. Getting back into the car to drive home I felt a bit disheartened- especially as I had told my boys where and why we were going. It was then I realised there was another nursery in Heidleberg so this was the next stop for us. I looked carefully through the selection of plants when one variety suddenly looked very familiar. The leaves were the ones the Lord had shown me while dwelling with Him. Right next to this variety were two small plant stands, just the right size for the pot. We then found a pot, exactly the colour I had seen. When I asked the worker there where the plant would survive well, he proceeded to describe the exact atmosphere in the Tabernacle environment. Dry and not too much light.

We made the purchases and drove home. Stopping at traffic lights I glanced down and was shocked to read the name of the plant on the card “peace lilly”. Right there on the plant of God’s choice, for the space of His choice, a fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5.

Helen & I have been struck again in the last weeks by this word in Acts 1:4-5

“On one occasion, while Jesus was eating a meal with them, he told them, “Do not leave Jerusalem but ‘wait’ for the gift my Father promised. Remember, I have told you about this before. 5 John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

So what the Disciples had to do in order to receive the magnificent gift of the Holy Spirit was: Wait! Yep that’s it, the most magnificent powerful gift that God has ever given to human’s and all they had to do was ‘not do’.

We are now in this same period of time between Passover (When The Lamb was killed to deal with sin) and Pentecost (When the Holy Spirit was given). In this time Jesus told His disciples to ‘wait’ in Jerusalem. We have felt to set aside some extra time just to ‘wait’ on the Lord no agenda, no talking just waiting, resting in His presence eager to hear what is on His Heart.

On Saturday night Helen and I both had a wonderful time with Jesus doing just this. Some friends of ours called today and told us how after we had shared with them that they too had set apart time and just waited on the Lord. This resulted in an unusual boldness as they taught Sunday school this morning, and after the lesson ‘teaching the kids to wait on God/ hear His voice’ they took the kids into the sanctuary where the main church was and one of the kids spoke out what they had heard and this was then followed up by a matching prophetic song, and God got to hijack the rest of the service. Very very cool report, all inspired by the kids. Go God!

Then tonight it just struck me to share this and encourage people to just get with God in this season of waiting. This is a special time and I don’t want anyone to miss out. No agenda’s no talking just come together and take the time, as long as it takes, to hear what is on God’s heart.
I can guarantee from my experience, it will be surprising and life changing, God is very very Good and He loves sharing His heart with us.

If you have a go at this please share your experiences here so that others can be Blessed by your adventure.

We have just passed the 7 months mark here in the US. We wanted to ask some people whom we have met in these past months why they perceive God has asked us to be here. ie. What is it that God wants us to bring/release here?

The first responses are from these people, but this is an open Blog so we invite input from anyone who has met us that feels led to participate. We would love to hear your impressions.

As I have heard news about the Earthquake in Haiti, and so much aid and money going over, which is great! I have wondered about the Miracle that we heard about after the 2004 Ache tsunami where missionaries believed they had heard God ask them not to help in physical ways but to centre on Him and praise Jesus and build houses of praise, this we now know bought about 150 houses of worship built over three years with over 66,000 becoming believers. The Jesus told us that when He is lifted up all men will be drawn to Him. John 12:32
This report that I have just received suggests to me that God is doing this Himself.

God you are awesome and your name mighty, and mighty are your ways, we love you and Praise your mighty name.
Here is the report -Slightly edited for brevity.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Miraculous Praise Amid Haiti’s Destruction

My friend Linda Graham believes in miracles, but her faith was stretched beyond her wildest imagination last week when she arrived in Haiti with three other women from Durham, N. C. They were on a routine mission to deliver blankets, clothing and medical supplies to an orphanage in the town of Carrefour.

They had no idea they were walking right into one of the worst natural disasters in modern history.

Their American Airlines plane touched down on Jan. 12 at 4 p.m.—15 minutes ahead of schedule. A Haitian pastor met them at the airport, loaded their bags in his vehicle and prepared to drive them to Carrefour when everything began to shake. At first Linda thought people were pushing the car until she noticed the trees were shaking too.

A 7.0 earthquake had just hit the city, but Linda and her friends, Kellee, Lisa and Julie, had no access to news broadcasts. All they could see were buildings collapsing and people running into the streets. Many people were covered with blood and white dust. One naked woman stood in the street with a stunned expression. Linda and her friends gave her some clothes.

The devastation was horrifying, yet the sound of praise soon filled the streets. Haitians were on their knees with their hands raised. “So many people were praying and praising God,” Linda told me. “They were saying, ‘Jesus is Lord’ and ‘Thank you Jesus,’ in Creole.”

Unable to drive to the orphanage, the pastor took the women to a church where about 2,000 people were singing and praying in a crude shelter that had survived the quake. Later that evening the women relocated to a soccer field where people were sleeping on sheets under the stars. Injured people were everywhere, but still the sound of praises filled the air.

“I’ve never felt the presence of God in such a tangible way as I did that night,” said Linda, whose husband, Wayne, and their two young children were back home in North Carolina—wondering if Linda had survived the disaster. “They were singing songs like, ‘Our God Is an Awesome God.’ People were praying in small groups, and then a wave of God’s glory hit us around 2 a.m. Everyone was shouting praises.”

The next morning wounded people lined up in front of the four white women, assuming they were nurses. Linda felt completely inadequate to help them, but she remembered they had Band-aids, antibacterial medicine, alcohol preps and $500 worth of underwear in their luggage.

Amazingly, they also had packed 25 pounds of rubber gloves. The women sprang into action. They began praying for people and applying bandages and Neosporin.

“I am convinced there was a loaves-and-fishes kind of miracle going on,” Linda told me after she was airlifted to Florida on a private plane over the weekend. “All our supplies were multiplied. We even used Band-aids on an amputated leg.”

The biggest test of the women’s faith came later that morning when two Haitian women went into labor. Linda was asked to deliver the babies—in an abandoned hospital. There were at least 300 dead bodies piled near the building’s entrance, but Linda was determined to see life triumph over the misery she saw all around her.

“It was an awful place,” she says of the Ministry of Health Hospital. “The three rusted tables in the maternity room were covered in bodily fluids. There was no electricity or running water in there. All I had was a pair of scissors and some fabric.”

Linda swallowed hard, prayed in the Holy Spirit and called on the Lord for help. She prayed harder when she realized that the first baby was in a breach position.

“I just made a declaration,” she said. “I prayed, ‘You will move into the right position and you will be born in Jesus name!’” A healthy girl was born in a few minutes.

A second pregnant woman then demanded attention, and her Christian husband translated Linda’s English instructions to his wife. To help the mother breathe properly, Linda told her to say “Hallelujah.”

When a baby boy was born the overjoyed father asked Linda to name the child. It was a prophetic moment that helped Linda gain insight into what God is doing today in this ravaged nation.

“I told him to name the boy Judah—which means praise,” Linda said. “I told him, ‘We have to praise our way through this.”

When Linda shared her story with me I realized God was working a million small miracles in Haiti that we will probably never hear about on CNN. Even in the mist of unimaginable horror and pain, many Haitians cried out to Jesus when everything they knew crumbled. And He has been answering them in a million different ways.

A newborn boy named Judah is just one of those miracles. He is a tiny testimony to the fact that there is a future and a hope for Haiti—a hope that is built on God’s unshakeable faithfulness.

J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma. You can find him on Twitter at leegrady. If you’d like to support the orphanage or the Christian school in Haiti that Linda Graham and her friends are helping today, go to www.strategicglobalinitiatives.org. Funds are urgently needed to aid these children.

Psalm 15 A psalm of David.

1 Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord?

Who may enter your presence on your holy hill?

2 Those who lead blameless lives

and do what is right,

speaking the truth from sincere hearts.

3 Those who refuse to slander others

or harm their neighbors

or speak evil of their friends.

4 Those who despise persistent sinners,

and honor the faithful followers of the Lord

and keep their promises even when it hurts.

5 Those who do not charge interest on the money they lend,

and who refuse to accept bribes to testify against the innocent.

Such people will stand firm forever.

Uptown is the name of a building in Munich, Germany. A few years ago Helen & I were living in Munich and God very strategically and repeatedly pointed out this building to us. The full story is here.

This Blog is about hearing God’s voice and then what we do with those words, it is also about the Greek spirit and how this tends to make our thoughts centre on us (MAN) and what we do rather than God and what He does (Hebrew thinking).

Just a few nights ago God gave me a download about how I can assume way too much of the need for me in God’s plans. In the opening of the Uptown story I say how God said to me “I want the top 5 floors of that building for My worship house.” Where I believe I went wrong was that I also inferred that I had to achieve this for God, or that this would involve me in a major way. (Greek spirit, me at the centre)When this additional thought came to me I was gripped by fear. Why because this extra thought wasn’t from God and it was meant to grip me with fear, and successfully did get my eyes and thoughts off of God and His greatness and onto me and my smallness. As I look back I also realise that I expected to be playing a big part and central (there it is again Greek Spirit, glorious me at the centre). What had God said? “I want the top 5 floors of that building for My worship house.” He was just letting me in on His plans, He wasn’t stating His desires and then expecting me to fulfil them for Him, that is sooo backwards in Gods economy. He is God and I am so very not! As it turns out we did get to go up to the top two floors and we played worship music up there and we made some spirit led declarations. We also followed a prompt to prayer walk around the building again making declarations. This is what God prompted and allowed, what didn’t happen was the stuff that I added that included me and what I was going to do.

In the last year God has been talking to me about Tabernacle amongst other things being like Angelic staging or rallying points. That God is using these set apart places for supernatural purposes. So what we dedicate and set apart in the physical, God is then using in the supernatural/spiritual, helping and participating in the releases that He wants to bring to cities and Nations.
This throws a whole other light on Uptown for me. The top 5 floors of this building, the premium/best floors stayed empty for years after the building was completed. So did God achieve exactly what He said He would? “I want the top 5 floors of that building for My worship house.” Was our part simply in preparation by coming into agreement and in the declarations and prayer walks?
Then of course God did exactly what He said He would, as the other floors of the building were rented out the premium top floors remained empty, or at least empty of other businesses.
The apartment that we stayed in for our last season in Munich was provided for us ‘rent free’ the full story is here. This was a gift from a very special family who said that they believed in what God had called us to and wanted to offer this apartment as a first fruits offering unto the Lord. Initially this apartment wasn’t available as planned, Helen & I then returned to Australia for the birth of our son. Later when the apartment did become available it sat empty, set apart and waiting. A few months later we returned to Munich and lived in this lovely light filled apartment. Previous to this revelation I would have said that we arrived and set up a Tabernacle there, but I can clearly see now that God had already established His Tabernacle in that set apart place (The cost was incurred the space was set apart, Holy, with or without us in it.) and was well underway achieving what He wanted to with no need at all for Helen & I to do anything at all. God loves our hearts and our efforts but He is God, not us as Thessalonians reminds us 1Thessalonians 5:24 God, who calls you, is faithful; he will do this.”

As I reflect on this I am sitting in the new Tabernacle room of our home in Denver. This home on a hill above Denver has sat empty for a year before we moved in here. Has God done the same thing here, that this time He set this place apart designating its purpose, using this place for His supernatural and spiritual purposes long before we arrived in this country? Greek thinking tends to focus on us and our efforts but I am coming to see that the things of the spirit are not determined by the things of this world, it is the other way around.

So my update on Uptown is that I believe God did exactly what He wanted to with that building, I believe I added thoughts that people would be involved and praying and praising up there. I think it is OK to dream like this with and for God, but it isn’t OK to think He has failed if our dreams are not fulfilled.
The picture at the top of this Blog is the image of the building from above from ‘google earth’. You can see the cloud of His presence over the building. After God said to us that it was finished, that He had done what He wanted to in Munich and that it was time for us to leave, I looked again and the google earth image no longer showed the cloud. The top floors are now rented out to a business.
Oh to be ‘IN’ on His plans and to be able to try to be useful rather than to have our efforts in fact mucking things up, God help us get over ourselves and look to You and what You are doing I pray.
Thank you that You are God and that You love us and that You are doing mighty things on the Earth.

This morning as we were preparing to leave for the Shabbat service, I paused for a moment looking out the window onto the Rocky mountains.
As I was looking out the window I believe I received the following download.
‘Where you put your presence is important’. Then I thought about how it is said about Gen X’ers vote with their feet. Meaning that if they don’t like something then they won’t show up at it, this has been at times portrayed as a lack of commitment or not honouring. Yet I thought I heard the Lord whisper to me ‘the Generation that I have prepared to host My presence needs to be careful with what they do with their presence’. Wow… I believe that while it has always been important to all generations to keep pure, to watch what they watch and participate in. This is very much more important to the current generations. The Lord is revealing Himself in new ways, He is training people to Host His presence, not just in set apart Tabernacle type spaces but also in the Tabernacles of our bodies.

What we do with our Tabernacle bodies is important! If we invite Jesus in to come and Tabernacle with us, that is to ‘stay’ then very much so everywhere we go everything we see, we are subjecting God to. Sometimes I am a bit shocked when I see people’s visual diet. What they watch on TV or movies, what they are happy to talk about. Now I’m not saying everyone needs to become a strict legalistic monk. But I am saying that if we want to host His presence in the stay permanently sense, then we need to be thinking also about our presence, the one doing the hosting, and where we allow it to go.

Please add your comments / Thoughts and revelations

I am reading the Happy intercessor by Beni Johnson, what a great book this is. Beni shares her heart for Jesus and she touches on many ‘Tabernacle’ concepts. I would highly recommend this book for anyone, not just intercessors, but anyone chasing intimacy with God. You won’t be disapointed.

Here is a link to a Blog we have just come across. The tide is moving. I see this revelation of what we are calling ‘Tabernacle’ getting bigger and brighter. God is indeed calling to His Bride to see who will give up on self and enter into His courts, trusting just in Him, making their lives All4Him. I believe more than ever that God is strategically placing people right now, healing, preparing hearts and taking those that are willing to step out in faith into much deeper levels of revelation and understanding. What will you do if you feel Him tugging on your heart? Will you move? Do you trust God that much? Can you trust God that much? Should you? Good questions to have answers too before they are asked. Right now I can hear a worship song declaring, “People get ready Jesus is coming.” Reader please get ready.
Click here for the link

Vacillation is part of all our journey’s!

Vacillation is characterized as hesitancy, uncertainty, a fluctuating back & forth. It is not unlike a leaf slowly wavering up & down, back & forth, eventually moving from tree top to ground. It is a journey.

Such it is in the presence of the Lord.

I have seen in my own experience & in the larger corporate sense, this vacillation.

The vacillation point pivots on the awareness of his presence & my own.

We are so afraid of being diminished. What would happen to us if we were lost in him? And this fear only reveals our lack of knowing him, for he never wants to diminish us.

So in the immersion of his presence, suddenly the question arises again, “What about me?” And we vacillate between his presence & the absorption of our presence.

But there comes in the journey of knowing him & being familiar with his presence, a moment in time when the fear of being diminished, the question of the developing identity, “What about me?” finds a place. It is put to rest. It becomes no longer a question, nor even a topic.

The question rests IN HIM. As we become familiar with His presence, we become entwined IN HIM. The wonderings of us, become imbedded IN HIM. In Him is our place, our resting. In Him, the journey of vacillation reaches its destination & no longer do we shift ‘out’ of him, but abide in Him. We rest in the new focus of our adoration, HIM.

New questions, new conversations, new experiences are then had in His presence. Jesus said, “Abide IN ME & I abide IN YOU.” (John 15) There is no danger of being lost IN Him. There is only the wonder, joy & freedom of being more aware of His presence than our own!

One recent Wednesday night worship space I sensed to begin with checking in with others if they would like to share some of what God has been doing/saying in their personal times with Him and what it is like to be with Him… I did this with the hope that there would be a God -centeredness from the outset of our time in His space. I thought that sharing about our recent encounters with God’s presence would set up an atmosphere of hungering and thirsting for more of Him. In some ways, the opposite of what I had hoped for happened- it became about the people- guilt about not being with God, reasons why they find it difficult to be with Him etc. Sorting out the ‘stuff’ became the focus of the evening and there was a short time dedicated to being with God left. Perhaps there were times in that conversation that I should have interrupted or brought it back to where I thought the conversation was originally going… Or perhaps the mess of people’s lives and situations- feelings of powerlessness- was the very thing God was revealing that night, as a reminder that we can’t do anything without Him. I might be called to lead people in this season, but their stuff is too big for me. The most helpful thing we can do as leaders is be an example of lives surrendered to Him. The most useful thing I can do for others is model a life that makes space for God and acknowledges who He is. I offer every victory back to God and am humbled that He would choose me to partner with Him in all He is doing.

I was able to talk with a friend the next day and was affected by the word “emergence”. What God is committed to is the process of journeying with us toward Him- toward wholeness. His business is restoration. I’m realising that this takes different forms and even the gold can sometimes have mud on it! Perhaps He allows situations of mess so we can learn how to clean up and how much we need Him.

Over the weeks, I’m realising the extent of my dependency on God. My walk with Him in this life He’s given is not a stopping by every few days or even hours… It’s a moment by moment walk with Him. I want to be His resting place. I need to be committed to only doing what He says to do- no more, no less… I’m discovering how imperative it is that I depend on Jesus to lead and heal the people. I’m finding that often the hardest thing to do is to refrain from action.

“Those who live according to the flesh have their mind set on the things of the flesh. Those who walk in the Spirit, have their mind set on what the Spirit desires”
(Romans 8:5).

When God began to Tabernacle with me at the same time I stepped into church leadership, I made a subtle assumption that He was doing this because of the work He was calling me to do in the church. I made a connection and presumed that God wanted to take up residence in my lounge-room because I had a worship team to lead… So I invited them there. Wednesday night ‘worship space’ was conceived- a time between 8pm and 10pm where people could come to our lounge room to pursue God’s presence and explore worship.

God honoured the desires of my husband and I to share with others what He was establishing in our home and each worship space has been graced with His presence.
People have met powerfully with God here. Although this was happening there was a feeling at the time that there was more to this that we just haven’t got yet. On the evening of 1st of April an hour before people were due to arrive God spoke to me very clearly, gently and graciously-leading forward in the journey. Regarding our home Tabernacle space He said: “It’s for me. It’s my space. I didn’t ask for a group, just space. I didn’t ask you to lead people in the space, I asked you to preserve a space, to maintain a space. Not to be a leader but a door keeper. It’s mine. It doesn’t matter who is there or who isn’t. It’s not the ‘what’ that happens there, it’s the WHY it is there- for Me.” With these words I got a deep sense of His call to maintain His dwelling place and that it’s out of that place of revelation I am to lead people. I somehow invaded the space with flesh before God had barely established Himself there. I made it about the people’s need for Him. I made it about a nice place to come and pray. I needed to repent of limited human centred understanding and to offer the space back to God as His.

Since then, God has been teaching me how to maintain the space- how to be a door keeper. This is a journey I am still on but it becomes clear when I think on the challenge of Romans 8 to walk in the Spirit. Do I fear man more than God? How much priority do I still give to the flesh?

For just a few fleeing moments, too few they were, I sat immersed in a dimension of the presence of the Lord my soul longed for, but never tasted of in this way.

Until now.

Amidst 80 or so others, I sat high on a Scottish Loch affectionately known as Loch Insh. I was in the highlands of Scotland. And here since the 6th century, worship to God had been uttered from mouths of a northern gentile people.

What God had revealed of himself in a little Irish town called Bangor in the 5th century, was now washing upon the shores of Scotland & soon Western barbaric Europe.

Infact the presence of God that was so longed for, yearned for & sought for with every part of the mind, soul & body, was rewarded; & for 400years a well was opened where ‘springs of living water flowed’ in unprecedented levels. It was from this ancient well, that I sat, arrested by the presence of God.

The atmosphere was so clear in this set apart place. The space between heaven & earth was wonderfully thin & so easily connected with. It was almost immediate. I did not struggle to breath as I had in other encounters with the presence of God, but instead quite the opposite! With such ease & lightness, I sucked in great ‘chunks’ of his presence…only sensing with my mind in that moment a very small portion of all I was experiencing.

In fact like a slow release time bomb, I have since become increasingly aware of so much more that was part of those fleeting moments that day at Loch Insh. I can only describe that what was imparted to my body, mind & spirit, has over these days since awoken within me emerging with such wonder.

I tasted that day, the gorgeous, life impacting inheritance left by a people who wanted for nothing else but the presence of God, & were rewarded. It was such a concentrated zone, but where concentrated often means intense & strong, this was clear, filling, light & wonderfully sweet.

What an inheritance to leave the generations that would follow after them!

The Bible describes the presence of God in two ways. There is the general, ever present, filling the earth presence of God. Romans 1:20 testifies that God’s presence “has been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made.”

But God also chose to place his presence in a specific way & location. In the Old Testament it was the Tabernacle & Temple he chose as his dwelling place. In the New Testament he chose the human body of a believer. In both cases, He chose a specific place to dwell.

In Matthew 6:10 Jesus shows his disciples how to pray. He exorts them to pray, “Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What is in heaven? God, his kingdom, his will; says this verse. What makes up his kingdom? Hebrews 8: 2 declares, “There He (Jesus) ministers in the holy place, the true Tabernacle of worship that was built by the Lord and not by human hands.”

Part of what makes up God’s Kingdom is a “Tabernacle of worship”, a holy place built by the Lord where he dwells in praises of his people.

So when we pray as instructed by Jesus, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”, we are praying also for a place on earth where the King of Glory may dwell.

Tabernacles, like his presence, are expressed in two ways, within us & within a geographical location. To reject this idea is perhaps agreeing with Replacement Theology, which suggests we replace everything concerning Israel with ourselves, including rejecting the Old Testament. Jesus did not come to do away with the Law but fulfill it. There is a difference between doing away with something & fulfilling it!

As I experienced the beauty of his holiness that day at Loch Insh, I continued my journey in knowing God & learning what it means for me & my body to become such a place where His beauty might rest & dwell.

The principles & lessons learnt in administering geographical spaces for over some 5 years now in many different countries of the world, have helped me appreciate & grow an understanding of what it means for the King of Glory to consider dwelling within me.

I have needed both ways of Tabernacle, so may I suggest is a growing world of seekers & lovers of Jesus! Perhaps then, we shall also, as many saints who have gone before us, leave a beautiful inheritance for our children & children’s children!