“Then he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from the altar before the Lord, with his hands full of sweet incense beaten fine, and bring it inside the veil. And he shall put the incense on the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the Testimony, lest he die” Leviticus 16:12-13
| Old Testament Shadow | New Testament Reality in Jesus and the Church |
| On the Day of Atonement the High Priest brought a golden censer full of fire and a handful of incense into the Most Holy Place. He put the incense on the fire in front of the Ark so that the cloud of incense covered the mercy seat. He then sprinkled the blood of the sin offering upon the mercy seat. | The mercy seat is a picture of Christ Himself. The sprinkled blood points to Christ’s shed blood. The censer of incense is significant of Christ taking the prayers of His people within the veil to God’s presence, on the basis of His shed blood. Read also Revelation 8:1-5 |
Incense is simply an Old Testament shadow or type of prayer and intercession. God is no longer interested in the shadows or types, but rather in the eternal realities to which these shadows point.
He is extremely interested in the prayer and intercession of His Church. For the life of a believer to be truly saturated in prayer is well-pleasing to God.
“Pray always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit.” Ephesians 6:18
Strange incense – speaks of false worship, ie trying to come to God in a way other than through Christ.
Strange fire – speaks of self-effort, works of the flesh. Holy fire comes from the Holy Spirit, it is from Him and initiated by Him – all other fire comes through the flesh. God Himself lit the fire on the altar in the Tabernacle of Moses.
“And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of meeting, and came out and blessed the people. Then the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people, and fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. When all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.” Leviticus 9:23, 24
This fire on the altar was kept burning at all times and this was the fire that was used in the Golden Lampstand, the Golden Altar and the Golden Censer. Any other fire than the fire from the altar was “profane fire” and spoke of man’s efforts, something that man initiated rather than God.
Our prayer life and our work for God must come from the fire of the altar – that is it is through the power of the Holy Spirit as we put our faith in Christ’s finished work on the cross. We do not want to offer God profane fire. Lord we ask for a fresh revelation of the cross of Christ.
Lord we repent if we have ever offered You profane fire. Forgive us Lord. Help us to be led by Your Spirit and to pray in the power of the Spirit only. We love You Lord and want to lay down our lives on the altar as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable for this is our reasonable worship.
Grace and Truth 
May 5, 2020 at 9:08 pm
BEYOND THE CROSS
While reading this post “Jesus and the golden censer” my HEART agreed with all regarding the shadows, however when I read the paragraph
Our prayer life and our work for God must come from the fire of the altar – that is it is through the power of the Holy Spirit as we put our faith in Christ’s finished work on the cross. We do not want to offer God profane fire. Lord we ask for a fresh revelation of the cross of Christ.
My HEART screamed out NO! not because the cross is unimportant or to take away anything from what God did to Jesus while He hung there, but NO it was screaming out that we need to move beyond the cross for our prayers and our sacrifices to have their true power, my HEART aches, it now burns within with anticipation for the script of the film to be spliced back together.
It’s like the last and most vital scenes of the screenplay have been edited and left on the cutting room floor. Watching Jesus Christ superstar a few weeks ago I also screamed out NO at the end of that, as the play closed with Jesus being carried away dead from the cross.
Everyone who believes in Jesus knows in their HEARTS that he is the only answer to ALL our issues and in fact that at the cross, as God poured out all his wrath on His son, finally giving up His spirit crying our NISHLAM, it is finished, Jesus knew He had fulfilled His earthly ministry and His reason for being born which was to die in order to open the door to heaven and the throne room of God.
So, the screenplay didn’t end at the cross, for the real true power of Jesus to manifest on this earth I believe the IMAGES in our HEARTS need to be focused higher up. I believe the misrepresentation and contamination of words, it is finished engraving the wrong IMAGES on our HEARTS keeping us from entering into the throne room with Jesus.
The language of the HEART Is IMAGES
The power and the glory however are not found at the foot of the cross, the script needs to keep rolling, there is no power to be found in a dead man. Jesus is ALIVE.
While praying in the shower this morning having read this and with an ache in my belly, I asked for clarity for the images God as in His heart regarding this, for Him to reveal them to me.
Now for the last few weeks we have been searching for my wife’s lost keys and this morning she woke and said “we last had them when we unlocked our daughters’ bike, they must be in the garage”
This instantly brought back images for me of having done this, so while I was lay in bed, the image that I had in my heart was as if I was in the garage, it was like an out of body experience, the same thing is happening now, while I am sat on the sofa in my front room writing, I can see in my imagination the inside of the garage, in fact I can see the box the lock and hopefully the keys are in.
I return from the garage with the keys found in the exact location I could see on my IMAGE-MAKER, a profound example that the language of the HEART is pictures.
Now my wife who is a teacher is very much a logical thinker, like all of us because we have been trained that way from birth said, “ you can get to things logically if you just think through it”
I replied “its nothing to do with logic, all to do with revelation and being able to see the IMAGES”
Anyway with my HEART on fire and a deep yearning to write within, I had to park the emotions while I attended to other matters taking my wife to hospital for a six week follow up x-ray on her broken ankle and then on our arrival home helping my eight year old son with his remote learning, at one stage my frustration and old programming surfacing when he kept on making the same mistakes over and over again so my HEART reacted and I snapped at him allowing frustration to surface and in the process repeating to him that which as done to me.
This another clear demonstration that our HEARTS can only be truly in one place at a time.
Another side of the nature of our HEARTS, is that, we don’t see things the way they are, but the way we are, was also clearly demonstrated with my wife saying on our journey to the hospital, “that there had been a couple of complaints from parents regarding the remote learning being offered by the school.”
Which to me was incredulous, because the actual learning offered is second to none, the school is going way beyond what most schools are offering, I do not think there will be a school in the whole country doing any more, it is quite incredible, so I replied to my wife, “that the complaint would not truly be about remote learning but that the complaint would be about the impact of having to stay at home and deal with the virus was having on their lives, that in fact the HEART behind the complaint would really be selfishness.
Another shred of light was also revealed in the darkness of my HEART when during dinner time my son asked the question “why we don’t walk straight away when we are born like giraffes do?”
My daughter who is now twelve and as just covered reproduction at school, so is now the pre-eminent source of information on the topic answered by saying “that Giraffes take so much longer to gestate so that their brains are equipped with the ability to walk.”
My wife’s interpretation was that, the bones of a giraffe were strengthened in this time, thus allowing them to weight bear.
My answer was “that giraffe’s brains are hot-wired while inside, all that a giraffe, or any animal will ever need is already programmed in its HEART.”
Whereas with humans it is not, we are born with great potential to become more and one of the major components as to how well we will do in the future is the crawling phase of our growth and that time spent on all fours with our IMAGINATIONS fully engaged taking in the data that will eventually when the neurons and synapses have the right IMAGES that transforms us from crawling into walking and talking beings.
I quoted the gentle revolution to them answers found in the HEARTS of severely brain damaged children and that kinesiology reveals that our left-right brain connections, distinctions, and developments require significant crawling.
This quote taken from Crawling-the most important milestone found at https://cognikids.com/2016/02/02/crawling-the-most-important-milestone/
Brain Development
Crawling is vital for cognitive development. It helps encourage crossing of the mid-line. This is the invisible line that runs down our centre and divides the left side from the right side of the body. Crossing of the mid-line is very important for further development and for the two hemispheres (sides) of the brain. It indicates that the left side of the brain is working with the right side of the brain and vice versa. Repeat crawling and practice will strengthen and continue to develop this.
God created us and made us to be greater than the animals, we were designed to crawl in order for our HEARTS to be programmed to move on a plain further back and higher up than we in our logical thinking Can ever reach.
The other shred of light that I alluded to earlier on, was that I said to my family in reply to our level of so called intelligence measured against how much we crawled, “that I must have been an OX from birth and walked out of the womb”
My wife answered saying, “That’s not the impression I got from speaking to your mum and dad,” they told her that I was very slow to learn to walk, crawled for longer than others, they could not understand how I had come to have excellent co-ordination and show such great potential for sport.
This spoke to my HEART of the feeling I have had all my life of being inadequate, useless and of no significance to anyone.
The revelation being that how easily the life we are supposed to live can be stolen from us by the spirit of lies interpreting the data we take in and developing highly destructive IMAGES in our HEARTS.
It is my belief that, for most believers the pre-eminent IMAGE they have in their HEARTS is of Jesus hanging on the cross which is as equally destructive of the powers that are to be found in the anointed messiah, the high priest king of peace, alive, seated at the right hand side of the Father.
Jesus in Hebrews 1:8 becomes 100% God and 100% man; His God the Father anoints Jesus of Nazareth who is restored to the glory he had in the beginning to become, Jesus Christ (the anointed messiah).
In Hebrews 2 we are told to pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so we don’t drift away from it.
Unfortunately, I believe this is not being done for the message I keep hearing is one that forever drifts back to the cross if it ever actually gets away from it.
Hebrews 3:1 Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.
Hebrews 4:14-16 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. 16 Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
In Hebrews 5 our HEARTS are engraved with the IMAGE of Jesus as our high priest king.
Who in Hebrews 5:11-14 Concerning him we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
Hebrews 6:1-2 Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.
Now as I read in Hebrews 7:22-25 so much the more also Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. 23 The former priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing, 24 but Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently. 25 Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
There was a continuous need of supply of former priests because of DEATH, they died and were gone but Jesus DIED-DEATH on the cross to be the first born from the dead.
Colossians 1:17-19 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. 19 For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him,
We are to draw near to God through Him, Jesus Christ, because he always lives, yes he died for our sin to bring us back into a right standing with the Father but He is alive for our lives and that I believe is where our focus should be.
The focus of our HEARTS and our prayers should be on Jesus the man seated at the fathers right alive for the life that is inside Him to manifest in the lives of those for who we pray, whereas for the most part our prayers are for what we can get out of the relationship making us the centre of our prayer life instead of Jesus being the centre.
So, the piece of the script lay on the cutting room floor needs splicing back on the reel for the screenplay to run its full course and for our HEARTS to press on to maturity and lay hold of all that has been and is being done in the HEART of Jesus.
May 5, 2020 at 10:56 pm
Hi, thanks for your comment. It is on the basis of the finished work of Christ that we can approach the Throne of God at all. Of course Christ is risen from the dead and ascended to the right hand of God, however the Throne does not work apart from the altar, it works by way of the altar, as is the teaching all throughout scripture. In fact the Altar and The Ark of the Covenant were both the same height, clearly denoting the connection between them. In Isaiah 6 , Isaiah sees the Throne but it is only by way of the coal from the altar that he is able to stand in the utter holiness of God.
The same is true in the Tabernacle of Moses – only Fire from off the altar was acceptable to present to God, as you will see in the story of Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10. They offered unauthorized fire and it was not accepted. Same is true for our lives. It is on the basis of the finished work of Christ on the cross that we can approach God and that we are accepted by Him. It’s all through and because of His shed blood – hallelujah! And it’s because of His she’s blood that He is now seated at the right hand of the majesty of God and we can approach the Throne of grace boldly.
May 6, 2020 at 7:24 am
Hi there and thank you for your reply.
I have just read your post about Jesus the new covenant and Him being our high priest and my HEART rejoiced, so I believe we a singing from the same hymn sheet.
You also talk about comfort, which is the angle I come from not having given my life to Jesus till I was 47, now at 58 I still have discomfort but it is that people are suffering through not knowing Jesus as there high priest, part of the reason I believe is because they look no further than the cross, because they are taught only to see that image.
So, talking about images could you give me the first one you see when I say the name Jesus.
May 19, 2020 at 4:38 am
What if that homeless man broke down in tears as he broke down his tent to leave in compliance with the minister’s orders?
And what if that homeless man wrote a blog?
What do you think that homeless man would write on that blog about the experience?
Do you think he would ask readers to pray for that minister and his church?
Find out.
Read THIS:
https://59widowedandhomeless.wordpress.com/2020/05/19/im-a-little-overwhelmed/
May 19, 2020 at 10:09 am
Thanks for sharing
March 7, 2022 at 8:55 am
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