The Second Veil

Seek Jesus!!

Pursue Jesus!!

Run after him with everything in you!!

Be a generation that chases after God, because that is what you were made for!!!!

Seems simple enough, right?? You were made to follow after Jesus every moment of your life... How hard can it be to do something you were made for? Well, I can tell you from firsthand experience that it can seem next to impossible. Why is this? Because we cannot engage in this pursuit of following God whole-heartedly if we are not constantly untangling ourselves from the things that restrain us from doing so. It is illogical to believe that you can fully follow Jesus without taking time to address the things that are holding you back from doing exactly that.

Here is an excerpt from "The Pursuit of God" by A.W. Tozer that really sparked my inspiration for this blog post.

________________________________________________________________________________

"What but the presence of a veil in our hearts? A veil not taken away as the first veil was, but which remains there, still shutting out the light and hiding the face of God from us. It is the veil of our fleshly, fallen nature living on, unjudged within us, uncrucified, and unrepudiated. It is the close-woven veil of self-life which we have never truly acknowledged, of which we have been secretly ashamed, and which for these reasons we have never brought the judgement to the cross. It is not too mysterious, this opaque veil, nor is it hard to identify. We have but to look into our own hearts and we shall see it there, sewn and patched and repaired it may be, but there nevertheless, an enemy of our lives and an effective block to our spiritual progress."

________________________________________________________________________________

In short, Tozer is addressing that we have a second veil inside of us that still needs to be torn. A veil that has secretly been forming in our hearts that is made up of earthly identities & temporary loves that we have been submitting to. This veil has been tightly knitted together within us causing us to feel more and more distant from our creator. This veil is what has been holding us back from living in the freedom that Jesus has already won for us.

Jesus had to endure extreme suffering in order to set us free from our bondage. The veil to eternal life has been torn, giving us the opportunity to live in the presence of God with no restrictions. This is good news!!! But that doesn't mean that we are going to feel joyful and free each day on earth because of this. We have been set free for eternity. 

The act of following Jesus is not a one-time pursuit. We need to be actively taking up our cross each day which means constantly cutting out pieces of the world that have latched onto us & filling those missing pieces with the truth of the Bible & God’s direction in our lives. If we continue to live each day in order to meet our own needs instead of bringing all glory to God, we are purposefully tangling ourselves back up in the chains that we have been set free from.

The tearing of the first veil involved a gruesome sacrifice and that same sacrifice needs to happen to the self-life veil inside of us. We need to come boldly before the throne and bring God all of the broken pieces that have been accumulating in our hearts. We need to let go of what we think is best for us and let God in to do the messy work. We are free from all of the guilt and condemnation that might come up during this process because we are a new creation through Jesus. If you are having a difficult time letting go and trusting this process, fix your eyes back on Jesus’s sacrifice and the greatest gift of all time that came from it. Jesus went through a level of pain that none of us can relate to.

He was mocked.

He was spat on.

His beard was ripped out.

He was slapped.

He was beaten.

He had nails driven through him.

And yet, God’s eyes were fixed on him the entire time. The darkest day in history that seemed full of abandonment & rejection lead to the an overwhelming gift. The gift of life. Hear me out- Something that may seem unbearable at the moment just might be the thing that will bring you closer to freedom in Jesus. I think this is where a lot of confusion comes in: Following Jesus doesn’t mean that the temporary suffering and pain will end, it simply means that we are free from eternal pain and that we have God on our side to comfort us in the midst of whatever we go through on earth. Just like the crucifixion, dying to our old self is going to be something that will not be easy. It could be one of the most painfully challenging things we go through. But this is what will set us free from that veil of self-life and will ultimately make way for us to find true life in Jesus. And this my friend, is where you will find that freedom you have been looking for.

We cannot expect to see God move mightily in our lives if we are not moving mightily towards him. In this specific case, we cannot expect to see God transforming our lives and giving us freedom if we are not willing to truly confess and surrender our fleshly desires to him in exchange for something better.

It is a beautiful thing when we let the will of God lead us through life no matter the cost. It makes God smile so big when his beloved children realize who they are and who's they are and dying to their old self and being made new.  Jesus restricted His earthly freedom in the name of love, and this is the example we should be looking towards in order to find that ultimate freedom.

You are so loved.

Morgan