The Camp Of Familiarity
"My heart says of you, "Seek his face!" Your face, LORD, I will seek." (Ps. 27:8)
Most believers live lives of quiet desperation instead of seeking to live life deliberately. We live in the present, based on our past with no expectation for an abundant future. The Bible teaches otherwise if we are to become holy.
David said that God is more concerned about our welfare than even your own cherished father and mother could ever be. God's love transcends parental love.
When David said "I will seek," he meant more than we typically understand. The word means to diligently look for, to search earnestly until the object of the search is located. This can apply to seeking a person, a particular item, or a goal. The Lord's face - His presence - is to be especially sought after in this manner.
Today Is The Day To Seek God
Have you ever noticed that there are certain times when the Lord calls you out of your normal routine? These special times are usually precipitated with the Lord's command to, "Seek My face." It is in these times that our Lord has something incredibly important to give us that the familiar pattern of our daily lives cannot provide. It is during these times when many people find refuge, are delivered from sin, reach a deeper depth of adoration for God, or experience a breakthrough in some area of their life.
In these special times where we seek God with all our strength until we find Him, we are not seeking Him for things or even for other people in intercession. We are seeking Him for Himself. In fact, real spiritual maturity begins when we break the cycle of seeking God only during hardship. Holiness begins the moment we seek God for Himself. As we mature in this process called discipleship, we discover we are looking for more than spiritual goose bumps. We are seeking to abide with Lord Jesus Christ in our daily, life routines. It is a time when we truly practice His presence.
But how do we enter into this sacred place? We can learn a great deal by examining the life of Moses.
"Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the "tent of meeting." Anyone inquiring of the LORD would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp." (Ex. 33:7)
To be outside the camp meant to be unclean, in the days of the exodus, those who were ceremonially unclean had to stay outside the camp.
Make note that, "anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp." The camp was the place of familiarity, of refuge. But, Moses would go outside the protected boundaries of the camp and enter into the makeshift lean-to of a tent some distance away from the populated confines of the camp. The tent was the place of God's presence. It was a sort of portable, small-scale tabernacle for special times of communion with God, especially before the full tabernacle was complete. But, it had none of the tabernacle furnishings. Moses placed it a great distance from the camp because of the desecration by the molded calf.
Likewise, if we are going to seek the Lord, we must "go out" just as Moses did. We must set our tent "some distance away" from the camp. The camp is the camp of familiarity.
There is nothing inherently wrong or sinful with things or even people being familiar. But as disciples of our Lord Jesus, we are called to leave the familiar pattern of our lives for extended periods of time and be alone with Him.
Jesus said, "In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:33)
Why is it that Jesus would ask so much of His disciples both then and now? He knows that we, by nature, are unconsciously governed by the familiar. For Christ to increase our understanding of the eternal, He must first save us from the limitations of the temporal.
Some have misunderstood Jesus' saying to mean that we are to forsake our families or that we should become irresponsible as we seek God. This is not good Bible. God has provided each person with enough time to seek Him. Once we meet our responsibilities for our families, we simply must say no to every other voice but God's. This may include our cancelling other things like hobbies, television, magazines, and yes, even ministry if it takes precedence over God.
A Christian's Greatest Mistake
Moses, Abraham, Joseph, Joshua, Elijah, David, and especially Jesus were radicals. The greatest threat to the life of Christ today is becoming Christian "normal." Instead of being conformed into the image of Jesus, most believers are more shaped by what they see on CBN from the well known, polished televangelists, by their own pastors, and even some church models.
The Apostle Paul rebuked the church at Corinth because they walked, "...like mere men" (1 Cor. 3:3). God has a more excellent vision, plan and purpose for you than that of your own thinking and from those you emulate. Understand that God does not want you "normal," He wants you Christlike. Christlikness, then, must become our goal.
For most people, their sense of reality, security, and protection come not from the living God, but from familiarity. We are taught from an early age to "color inside the lines." Conform. Be restricted. Remain constrained. Don't break the rules. Keep the law. Rules are added to rules. In fact, much of what we are taught today is more based on traditions of familiarity than the absolute security of being rooted in Christ. Jesus, who came not to condemn the world, but to save it, said,
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." (Mth. 5:17)
God's moral and ceremonial laws were given to help people love God with all their hearts and minds. However, these laws had been misapplied. When Jesus came on the scene, religious leaders had turned the laws into a confusing mass of rules. When Jesus talked about a new way to understand God's law, he was actually trying to bring people back to its original purpose. Jesus did not speak against the law itself, but against the abuses and excesses to which it had been subjected.
If Jesus did not come to abolish the law, does that mean all the Old Testament laws still apply to us today? To understand the answer, you first must understand the law. In the Old Testament, there were three categories of law: ceremonial, civil, and moral.
1. The ceremonial law related specifically to Israel's worship (see Leviticus 1:2, 3, for example). Its primary purpose was to point forward to Jesus Christ; these laws, therefore, were no longer necessary after Jesus' death and resurrection. While we are no longer bound by ceremonial laws, the principles behind them, to worship and love a holy God, still apply. Jesus was often accused by the Pharisees of violating ceremonial law.
2. The civil law applied to daily living in Israel (Deut. 24:10, 11 for example). Because modern society and culture are so radically different from that time and setting, all of these guidelines cannot be followed specifically. But the principles behind the commands are timeless and should guide our conduct. Jesus demonstrated these principles by example.
3. The moral law (such as the Ten Commandments) is the direct command of God, and it requires strict obedience (Ex. 20:13 for example). The moral law reveals the nature and will of God, and it still applies today. Jesus obeyed the moral law completely.
The point is this, we are not to be anchored to the familiar just because we've always done it that way before. Experience tells us that many people remain in lifeless churches because they desire the security of familiar faces more than they desire the truth of God. Consider the fact that most people never move any further than 50 miles away from where they were born. Even those who come from homes filled with abuse and neglect tend to gravitate back to the same kind of home later in their lives. Children of neglect, divorce, abuse, and substance abuse become the fathers and mothers of the next generation. Even those in prisons are mostly repeat offenders simply because they are more familiar with prison life than they are with freedom.
Most believers live lives of quiet desperation instead of seeking to live life deliberately. We despise change. We work all day, go home, watch television, collapse in bed and start all over again the next day. Our lives become a chain of bondage. This is certainly not sinful, but this kind of life-style is not the life of Christ and can keep us from the living God.
Moses would have us leave the familiar and pitch our tents "outside the camp of familiarity." Jesus would have us do the same:
"And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come." (Heb. 13:12-14)
Most of the book of Hebrews tells us how Christ is greater than the sacrificial system. There may be a time coming when you find it necessary to leave your "camp" and suffer with Christ. Jesus suffered humiliation and uncleanness outside the Jerusalem gates on our behalf. The time is coming when Christians will be called on to declare their loyalty to Christ above any other loyalty, to choose to follow Jesus whatever suffering that might bring. We will be called to move outside the safe confinement of our past, our traditions, and our ceremonies to live for Christ.
Christ calls us to leave the familiar, the distracting world of our lower senses and abide in Him. The highest goal of our prayer is to find God. Today, seek Him until you find Him. Continue day by day, week by week, until you have drawn near enough to God that you can hear His voice. Become so confident that He is near to you that you know He hears your every whisper.
"Come near to God and he will come near to you." (James 4:8)
If we are going to become holy as He is holy, we must recognize that Jesus has already broken our chains and restraints of just getting by and living an average life. We must choose to go outside the camp of familiarity and abide in the tent of God's presence.
Live Christ Deliberately!
Doug Morrell
Director, CORE Discipleship Group Ministries
Copyright 2003 by Doug Morrell, CORE Discipleship Group Ministries, http://www.coregroups.org. You may copy this article for free and distribute as long as you do not change the content, make sure this copyright statement is included, and you distribute for free. Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers. |
