The Secret of Standing

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hen you retreat to the secret place, you are standing in the Spirit together with all the saints on the sea of glass

and gazing upon the One who is seated on the throne (Revelation 15:2). Even though your eyes are veiled so you can’t see Him with the natural eye, you are still standing directly before the throne! The highest privilege of all creation is to stand before the living fire of God’s presence and burn with holy affections for your Fa- ther and King. Standing here is your eternal destiny, and you can taste a bit of heaven on earth by shutting your door and standing before your God in the beauty of holiness.

Your schedule doesn’t want to let you stand here; work de- mands militate against you standing here; hells wars against you standing here. But you are awakened to the beauties of holiness, and now you long to come aside and stand in His presence. Just to stand; and having done all, to stand!

To stand, despite the warfare; to stand, despite the resistance; to stand, despite the hassles; to stand, despite the weariness; to stand, despite the distresses; to stand, despite the temptations; to stand, despite personal failure and collapse; to stand, despite the grief; to stand, despite the loneliness; to stand, even when

Secrets of the Secret Place

chained; just to stand!

To stand, because of the cross; to stand, because of the Lamb; to stand, because of His affections; to stand, because of His ac- ceptance; to stand, because of His mighty power within; to stand, because of fountains of living water flowing up from the innermost being; to stand, because of His surpassing beauty and greatness; to stand, because of His eternal purpose; to stand, because of His everlasting mercies; to stand, because of love; just to stand!

The job description for the Levites is still applicable to us today: “At that time the LORD separated the tribe of Levi to bear the ark of the covenant of the LORD, to stand before the LORD to minister to Him and to bless in His name, to this day” (Deuter- onomy 10:8). One of our prime responsibilities (and privileges!) is to stand before the Lord to minister to Him. In the secret place we simply stand. No great agenda, no mighty ambitions, no rush to move on to the next thing. We just stand before Him and love Him.

There are seasons when God calls us to simply stand. We might prefer the adrenalin of chasing down a great cause, but sometimes God calls us to stop all activity and just stand. Sometimes He gives us no choice. Occasionally, circumstances will constrain us beyond our ability to steer a different course, and we become prisoners to the chains that bind us to God’s will. Incapable of extricating ourselves and moving on to the next thing, all we can do is stand and burn in holy love for our King.

It is commonly said, “Don’t just stand there, do something!” When circumstances in our lives are careening out of control, the great temptation—when you don’t know what to do—is to do something. “God can’t steer a stationary vehicle,” they say, “So start moving out on something, and let God direct your course.”

That may be the way to go in some situations, but I’ve found that the Lord has been working differently in my life in recent days. He inverted that common saying and gave it to me this way, “Don’t just do something, stand there!” It came like this: “When you don’t know what to do, don’t just do something! Wait on Me, stand before Me, minister to Me, until. Until I speak. When

The Secret of Standing

I speak to you, then you can move out in response. But until I speak, just stand there.”

So like the Levites of old (Deuteronomy 10:8), I bear His pres- ence on my shoulders, I stand before Him to minister to Him, and I bless others in His name as He strengthens me. “I have set the LORD always before me” (Psalm 16:8). So I will stand before Him, gaze upon His beauty, and bless Him while I have my breath.

To stand before God in this way, we can learn something from the angels. For example, look at Gabriel. When the angel Gabriel came to tell Zecharias that he would father John the Baptist, it was Gabriel’s second appearance in Scripture. Actually, Gabriel is seen three times in the Bible. He appeared the first time to Daniel, and then almost 600 years later he visited Zecharias, and then he came to Mary six months later to announce her impreg- nation by the Holy Spirit. When Gabriel came to Zecharias with God’s message, Zecharias did not believe his words. In response to Zecharias’s unbelief, Gabriel rose up to reinforce the certainty of his message by declaring, “‘I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God’” (Luke 1:19).

“So what do you do, Gabriel?” we might ask. “I stand in the presence of God.”

“Yes, we understand that, but what do you do?” “Actually, I stand in the presence of God.”

“Yes, yes, Gabriel, we understand that! But what we’re asking is, what do you do??”

Gabriel would say, “That’s what I do! I stand in the presence of God. I stand there, beholding His majesty and splendor, burning with His holy flame, and wait upon Him until He speaks. If He says nothing, I just stand there. When He gives me a word, then I move out to fulfill it. But mostly what I do is I just stand before God and wait on Him.”

Between Daniel and Zecharias is a 600-year period during which we hear nothing from Gabriel; then between Zecharias and Mary was a 6-month period. That was the busy season! What did Gabriel do between assignments? He just stood there.

I’ve discovered that sometimes God is wasteful. He watches

Secrets of the Secret Place

while you cultivate your gifts and talents and ministry abilities, until you become a finely tuned piece of ministry potential. You’re ready to do exploits! And then He takes the well-oiled ministry machine that you’ve become and places you on the shelf—and He says, “Just stand there.”

This is what God did with Elijah. Elijah had this expression, “‘As the LORD God of Israel lives, before whom I stand’” (1 Kings 17:1). Elijah claimed, “I stand before God, that’s what I do.” So the Lord decided to test his claim by putting him under house arrest for three years. In the widow’s home during the famine, he couldn’t stick his head out the door because every nation on earth was looking for him. He was stuck in this hot, stuffy, bleak little house. No friends, no visiting prophets, no other voices to comfort or give him perspective. And the food? Frycakes for breakfast, frycakes for lunch, and more of the same for supper. I can imagine Elijah thinking, “Lord, why do You have all this ministry potential holed up in this widow’s house? I mean, in the last three years I could have raised up a whole graduating class in the School Of The Prophets. We would be taking the nations by force! But no, here I stand and rot!” But Elijah didn’t respond that way because God had already taught him to stand before Him. So when the time of testing came, Elijah was able to persevere and just stand before His God and minister to Him.

The Scriptures show us that God has mighty angels who stand in His presence, in some cases for hundreds of years, and wait for His bidding. With all their strength and might, God just has them standing around the throne and waiting on Him! If it were a matter of strength, God has all the strength in heaven He needs! And then the Holy Spirit whispered to me, “I don’t need your strength.” It wasn’t the strength of the eternal Son that bought our redemption; it was the fact that He was crucified in weakness that brought us salvation. God doesn’t need our strength; He needs our availability. He’s just looking for us to stand in His presence, gaze upon Him, love Him, and fulfill His word when He speaks.

Are you between assignments? Then just stand before Him, enjoy Him, and let Him enjoy you!

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Дата добавления: 2015-10-23