To Encourage You

Hebrews 8:5-6 “. . . there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, ‘See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.’”

Hebrews 9:2-4 “For a tent was prepared, the first section, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the Presence. It is called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain was a second section called the Most Holy Place, having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant.”

Are you a person who likes to send Christmas cards?  If you are, it is likely that you use the services of the post office more then than at any other time of the year.  Christmas is that time of year that, traditionally, many of us take time to communicate with friends and family through cards and gifts sent many miles through the mail.  Perhaps we’d rather share our sentiments in person, but the miles that separate us from our loved ones just won’t allow this.  We can’t be in more than one place at one time.  Nevertheless, it is a wonderful thing that we can still send our thoughts through the medium of the post office. 

Of course, that’s not the only way we can communicate remotely.  We live in the age of the internet, and we can instantly communicate with anyone who has an email address anywhere they are in the world.  And of course, there’s the telephone.  It’s all a wonderful reality of the age in which we live. We can communicate in ways that were unheard of and likely unimaginable for most of the history of the world. And we even have ways to communicate with outer space. Who that was alive when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon can forget his words which were heard live, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” 

Yet, there’s one place none of these means of communication can reach, and that’s the world that extends beyond outer space, a place the Bible calls “the third heaven” (2 Corinthians 12:2).  It’s the eternal dwelling place of God.  It’s a divide that no human being has the intelligence or means to communicate across, except for what God has done to make such communication possible.   Aren’t you glad He’s done this?  What an awesome truth that we can communicate with heaven itself.  It’s something the Lord wants us to know about and that He has encouraged us to take advantage of each and every day.  Else why would He have told us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:16), and to “pray about everything” (Philippians 4:6).  God wants us to know that our prayers reach Him. He wants us to realize that “his ears are open to (our) prayer(s)” (1 Peter 3:12).  He has gone to great lengths to teach us this. 

One such place is in the verses above from Hebrews 8 and 9.  Here we are told about how the priesthood and the tabernacle that God instructed Moses about in the Old Testament was a shadow of the reality of these things in heaven. It was with such physical things that men could see that God was pointing to spiritual things that are every bit as real, but which we cannot see.  Within the tabernacle was a room called “the holy place.”  This was the “first section” of the tent that is mentioned above.  It was a place that every priest could enter and where they could conduct the ministry of the priesthood that God had given them.  But then there was a curtain, behind which was “the most holy place.” Beyond this curtain only the high priest could go, and that only one time each year.  It was this place that represented heaven itself, a place that our Great High Priest, Jesus Christ, entered by the sacrifice of His own blood.  One of the things that the earthly high priest would do in entering the most holy place was to take coals from the golden altar of incense as well as sweet incense, which was in the holy place and bring them within the veil, into the most holy place (Leviticus 16:12).  It’s all a picture of how our Lord carries our prayers into the very presence of God in heaven as our intercessor. 

We get another picture of this reality in Revelation 8:3, where it says “And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.”  It’s all telling us that the prayers of the believers, each and every one, actually do reach into heaven. It’s a communication like no other, and it’s available to each and every person who knows the Lord. 

So, are you taking advantage of this means of communicating with the Creator of the universe?  As you reach out across the miles to your loved ones through the medium of the mail or the internet, are you remembering to reach out by way of the wonderful medium of prayer that God has provided to you so that you can personally communicate at any moment of every day with the One who loves you most? It’s an awesome and incredible privilege that has been provided to us by God.  May He help us to make use of it. May we be those who communicate often with heaven above.