From Outer Court to Holy of Holies; The Believer's Spiritual Journey | Open Book | Oct 7, 2025 | CR

Crystal Rivers | Open Book | Oct 14, 2025
You possess something extraordinary: the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, who grants you unlimited access to every spiritual reality that Christ's blood has purchased. This is not a distant hope but your present reality.

In the Old Testament, the tabernacle was divided into three distinct areas: the outer court, the holy place, and the most holy place (also called the holiest of all). Only the high priest could enter the most holy place where God's presence dwelt, and even then, just once a year, carrying the blood of sacrifices to obtain temporary atonement for Israel's sins. The outer court was where sacrifices occurred and where people dealt with their sins through repeated rituals.

But something radical happened when Christ died and rose again. When you received Jesus as your Savior—not through religious activity or church membership, but through genuine repentance from your old nature and believing in His death and resurrection—you were immediately transported in the spirit realm into the holy place and the most holy place. This happens at the moment of salvation, not gradually over time.

Here's what this means: The outer court represents the place of salvation itself, where the sacrifice occurs. Once you've received Christ, you don't remain there in endless cycles of repentance and sin-consciousness. You've been qualified by Christ's blood and conveyed into the kingdom of God. The New Testament writers don't even recognize the outer court as part of God's house for believers. It's been left for those who don't truly know God—those still trapped in worldly thinking and repetitive sin patterns.

**Your Access to the Most Holy Place**

Scripture commands you to come boldly—not timidly, not with inferiority, not weighed down by sin-consciousness—to the throne of grace. Christ has already entered the most holy place on your behalf. When He ascended to heaven after His resurrection, He presented His blood to the Father and sat down at God's right hand. Because He is there representing you, you are positionally there with Him. You have been raised up together with Christ and seated together with Him in heavenly places.

This is where David's tabernacle becomes significant. When David brought the ark of the covenant back to Israel, he did something revolutionary: he opened it for all Israel to see, breaking the old pattern. This foreshadowed the present age where the dividing wall between the holy place and the most holy place has been removed for believers. You now have direct access to both simultaneously.

**Why This Matters for Your Daily Life**

You must consciously engage with this reality. In the holy place, you feed on the showbread—the spiritual truths and doctrines of Christ that nourish your understanding. In the most holy place, you commune directly with the Father, beholding His face, fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit, and drinking in His presence.

This isn't optional for spiritual growth—it's essential. You cannot be transformed outside of this conscious participation. The purpose of functioning in these dimensions while you're still on earth is so you can be changed, perfected, and conformed into the exact image of Christ. As you behold Him with an unveiled face, you are metamorphosed from glory to glory into His likeness.

**The Race and the Measurement**

There's a specific goal you're running toward. Scripture speaks of reaching "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ"—a divine standard that determines your position in eternity. In the book of Revelation, an angel measures the New Jerusalem, which is actually the bride of Christ—believers who have been perfected. The measurement taken is described as "the measure of a man, that is, of an angel."

This reveals something profound: through this process of transformation, you are being changed into something beyond ordinary humanity. Scripture says that in the day of testing and persecution, even the weak among God's people will become like David, and those who are already strong will be like God, like the angel of the Lord. You are being prepared to function not merely as a human being but as one who bears the complete image and nature of Christ—faultless, perfected, reflecting His glory.

**Living From This Reality Now**

Stop living as though you're still in the outer court, constantly battling with sin-consciousness and repeated repentance. You've been delivered from that realm. Yes, you deal with sin when it arises, but your identity is not found in your struggle—it's found in your position in Christ. You are already dead to sin and alive to God. Reckon this to yourself: account it, calculate it, establish it in your thinking.

When challenges come—sickness, attacks, fears—don't respond from a place of spiritual inferiority. You have already tasted death in Christ. He died once for all, and so have you. Death no longer has dominion. Sin no longer has dominion. You possess eternal life—not as a future promise only, but as a present reality working in you now through the Spirit.

**Your Eternal Inheritance**

What you acquire during your time on earth—not material possessions, but spiritual maturity and Christ-likeness—determines your position in the world to come. That eternal city, the New Jerusalem, is not a place of endless worship services alone. It's the dwelling place of God among His people who have been perfected and who function in the enterprise of God throughout eternity. Only those who reach that divine measurement will inhabit the innermost places of that city.

This is why you cannot afford to be passive or distracted. Pursue this maturity with intensity. Labor in fellowship with God. Let the Holy Spirit, who is your teacher and comforter, guide you into all truth. He works within you, cultivating resurrection power, revealing Christ, and transforming you from the inside out.

You are not merely a forgiven sinner hoping to make it to heaven someday. You are a child of God, positioned in the most holy place, being perfected into the image of Christ, destined to reflect His glory as one who is like God Himself. This is your heritage, your calling, and your race. Run it with understanding, boldness, and unwavering faith.