BEHIND THE VEIL – Enter Boldly

Therefore, when He came into the world, He said:

“Sacrifice and offering You did not desire,
But a body You have prepared for Me.
 In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin
You had no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come—
In the volume of the book it is written of Me—
To do Your will, O God. Hebrews 10:5-7

Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh…” Hebrews 10: 19-20.

*All scriptures are from the NKJV, unless stated otherwise.

Introduction

At a point in my life, I got tired of trying to convince myself that I am right
I got tired of trying to convince myself that I may be wrong
I got tired of trying to know whether someone was watching me to see whether I was right or wrong. I had to be blunt with myself and so I asked myself “what is wrong with me and with everyone else that thinks that good works as regards the outer show of righteousness are what make or will make us heirs of righteousness in Christ?” For obviously its useless trying to be righteous through a means that was already rejected by God. You will bear with me; this article is going to be a bit of many things in one.

Love, Sacrifice and Offering
The sacrifices and offerings made under the Old Testament law, God doesn’t desire anymore. And the reason is very straightforward; the onetime sacrifice of Christ put an end to all such offerings of goats and sheep. And just like Jesus, there is what is written in the volume of the books concerning our lives and a corresponding body which He gave us to do His will and His will alone. Meaning our human, physical bodies were not given to us so that we would make idols out of them, but our bodies were given to help us measure, in real time, where our desires lie. For the desire of the human heart cannot be outside of a human body. The body even in its corrupt state is a perfect instrument to measure how we are responding to God. That is, how we subject our fleshly desires before God, for His desire to be manifested in us. Therefore it means that our sacrifices of tithe and offering in church, our good charitable deeds, our love talk, our compassionate acts of love, if not done according to the mind and will of God for us at the time of such action, become nothing but sacrifices and offerings that God doesn’t desire. It may sound a bit contradictory to the normal mind if I say that love is not measured by good works but by obedience, but this is well proven in the words of Apostle Paul when he said “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.  And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” 1Cor 13:1-3. It appears that all the good works spoken of in the above scripture don’t seem to amount to love, doesn’t it? Yes absolutely. Meaning that no amount of the acts of love, outside of surrender of self-will for God’s will to prevail, which is the true meaning of love, is worth anything. I believe that’s why Jesus said, “He who obeys me is the one who loves me.” Meaning love is completely dependent on obedience to God by the surrendering of self-will and self-desire in exchange for the will of God. Natural family members don’t necessarily depend on obedience to God to express love between them, they just do so naturally. That’s why it is natural. As cool as that may look, such expressions of love don’t amount to much compared to love by obedience to God’s will. And I believe that’s why Jesus said that His mother, brothers and sisters are those who do the will of His Father. The world doesn’t understand why love should be based on obedience to some “unseen personality called God”, but all things are possible through faith in God for those who believe.

The Cross of Jesus
The cross of Jesus is a type of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which gives birth to death and also brings a curse. It is the tree of the wisdom of this world, but upon it the manifold wisdom of God was shown to the principalities and powers of this world by the dying and the resurrection of the Christ. I have often wondered why Jesus had to die on a cross and not maybe by another means. I believe it’s tied to the next scripture which says “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”) Gal 3: 13. Besides death by hanging on a tree, He also became a curse. This is the reason Jesus was not killed by any other means but by the means of the cross. Why? The cross or tree offered Him the ability to lay down His body in death while also nailing the curse meant for man from the garden right on it. “Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” Colossians 2:14. He made a humiliating show of them all on His cross. He was naked while bearing His death and the curse of man. He fulfilled the word that says “naked and not ashamed” right there on the cross. The question now is this, when He said, he who must come after Him must carry his cross and follow Him daily… what did He mean?

Take up your own cross

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. Matt 16:24 (Emphases mine)

The cross of Jesus is His cross. The death of Jesus is His death. The curse of hanging on the cross was ours but became His curse but the life that flowed from that process of the cross is both His and by extension ours. But, nothing happens between God and man without faith and belief. Meaning that even though Jesus has paid the price of the cross for whoever believes in Him, yet He commands those who will come after Him to carry their own crosses and follow Him. I see a difference between “come after Him” and “follow Him”. Obviously, He was pointing to the truth that it is only those who carry their cross of dying to their flesh and its desires (those that deny themselves) that are true followers of Him and also that it is only these ones who will do greater works after Him. For to follow Jesus is to live out His pre-crucifixion pattern of lifestyle which is limited by the body of flesh, but to do greater works is to come after Him according to His post-crucifixion pattern, which is unlimited in all things.
God knows that for us humans, it is easy to put up show to convince ourselves that we are doing great before God. And that it’s easy to exchange one form of righteousness by the law for another form of righteousness by the law by just changing how it appears to ourselves and to others watching. But God cannot be mocked and so must we not mock ourselves by thinking it’s a game of chance. It is not a game of chance. Men do reap what they sow and in bigger measures.

Sacrifice your self-will
A big portion of the church has been deceived into believing that Jesus has done it all on the cross, that there is nothing else remaining for the believer to do, so they allow all manner of things in their walk of faith. Inasmuch as Jesus finished His mandate of tearing the veil by His death on the cross, it is left for us to walk in behind that veil boldly. But what does walking boldly mean to the believer in real time? It means the bold sacrifice of self-will and desires. As experience has shown over time, it takes a great deal of boldness to walk away from the known to that which is not known, from the convenient to the inconvenient, from flesh to Spirit. For faith is the ability to be bold towards God and what He expects of us. Faith is not possible without boldness even though boldness alone is not faith if it’s not by the word of God.
To kill self-will and selfish desires, this is how we enter boldly behind the veil to partake of the treasure that is at the right hand of the Father; the treasure Who is Christ Himself. The life of Apostle Paul paints this clearly for whoever is paying attention to see. His life creed gives us a clear road map as to how to enter boldly behind the veil. I have often wondered how one enters behind the veil, until it made sense recently that it is actually quite simple, as simple as letting go of the earthly and boldly embracing the heavenly. Going behind the veil is not about going to get some “gifts” but about going to finally accomplish the heart of God for man to be in His image and likeness. For as we behold Him face to face in our daily life of faith, we are changed to that image of His from glory to glory. It’s about letting to go of the earthly in order to lay hold of the heavenly.
See what the Apostle Paul wrote, “Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3:8-11 NKJV
Walking with God was never a ticket to an easy life of convenience. He never promised that it was going to be easy even though He promised not to ever leave us nor forsake us on our path towards entering boldly behind the veil.

What do you hold dear?
Somehow, the grace of God made sure my life from the very beginning didn’t have so much desire for things or lots of the complications of life. My young life was a very simple one of waking up as early as 5:00am, going to open the church doors and windows (my late dad was a pastor), ringing the church bell at 5:30 am for the morning service to begin, and then going to school by 7am. I was in primary school at this time. I guess that’s one of the reasons I have always wanted and desired the simple things in life even as I became a man. I just dislike complications that come through the gathering of things, the chase after luxury, sitting behind some desk in some office from 8am till 5pm and feeling cool about it all. It has never made sense to me why I can’t just go around the nations of the world like a pilgrim, learning God and life as I go, instead of sitting in some space and being a battery that powers the system of this world that is coming to nothing. Mind you, I am not saying that any of those things that others desire are wrong, and neither am I also saying what I desire is right. It has never just been my passion to chase things outside of simplicity and the learning of God. But does that exempt me from the evil that comes from the desires of my heart if they are outside of the desire of God? Not at all. For while Mr A may desire with all passion a corner office with a window on a sixty storey building towering over every other building in the city, making him feel taller and larger than life, my desire is just to sit in a quiet tree house by a lakeside reading something, or have a forest house far from the noise of the city from where my music, writings and every other thing I do is done and sent out to the world. Neither are the desires of Mr A nor my desires right or wrong. For if both desires are not the result of aligning with the mind and desire of God for which He gave the body, then they are just desires and fruits of the body of death. Another thing is this; sometimes the desire of our heart that we push to accomplish might even be the very action that God told us about. The danger however is this; there is nothing God cannot do by Himself. And let’s even say He can’t come down to earth to do it, He has angels that can take human form to do whatever He wants to do on earth. Meaning, when the very thing or things God tells us to do become our idol of desire and not God Himself; they instantly pitch us against God and His desire.

Can we go forward please?
It should be enough already that we have been talking for years about entering behind the veil where the forerunner has gone before us. Just maybe it’s time we reviewed whether the body given to us by the Father has become our newest idol rather than a meter to measure how much of letting go of desires and passions we are doing. That is the only way to go behind the veil. The reality of behind the veil is also the reality of the New Jerusalem which comes down from God. Uncleanness is the same thing as corruption and corruption only comes through desire or lust. See 2 Peter 1:4.  And as scripture puts it, nothing unclean can enter in. And might I add, no one can walk away from his human desires without boldness. No one can. Many are too carried away with what others might think about them taking bold steps than they think about taking the bold step itself. For behind the veil as a spiritual concept is not a location that you use Google maps to find. Not at all. It’s a reality that becomes it the moment your boldness to walk away from the desires of the flesh begin to come into place daily. It is how we draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with the pure water of the word of faith.

Clearly it’s time to go forward and enter into the things that have been freely given to us by God. So be bold about going further and the God of peace will guide your heart and feet to all things He wishes for you.

Blessings always. From your brother.