presence of God – adonainissi

Your heart in the presence of God (part 5 of 5)

Dreams are the language of symbols. Looking at what symbols might mean in the context of scripture and its Hebraic roots, often reveals interesting insights.

As a recap from part 4, we have been looking at the ark of testimony and the things inside it. First described in the book of Exodus, the book of Hebrews piques our interest in the ark and suggests that there is symbolic relevance.

Hebrews 9:3-5
3 Behind the second curtain, the tabernacle was called the most holy place.
4 It contained the gold altar of incense and the ark of the covenant, covered with gold on all sides, in which there was a gold jar containing the manna, Aaron’s staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant.
5 The cherubim of glory were above it overshadowing the mercy seat. It is not possible to speak about these things in detail right now.

As I mentioned in the first of the series, I believe that the ark is a metaphor for your heart.

The ark along with your heart were created to bring glory to God and to be pure both inside and out. The ark was coated with pure gold both inside and covering the ark. Gold is a symbol representing purity and high value.

Your heart was created to be in the presence of God, 24×7, just like the ark.

The three items inside the ark were the pot of manna, Aaron’s rod, and the tablets of testimony.

In part 2, we established manna as a symbol for faith.
In part 3, we established the rod as a symbol for hope.
In part 4, we established the tablets as a symbol for love.

Faith, hope, and love are what is referred to be a “triad.”
There are a number of interesting triads in the new covenant. In terms of dream symbols, the number three often represents the holy trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). Yeshua said “I AM the way, the truth, and the life,” another triad.

I believe many things in the scriptures are intentional and that God knew what he was doing when he established numbers and details. Yeshua said himself that not one jot or tittle would pass away until everything had been fulfilled. The elements in the ark form a triad. Are there other triads in the new covenant that we can connect with the triad in the ark? I believe there are.

Not to get carried away with it, but there are some interesting symbols in the ancient Hebrew pictographs. For example, the Hebrew pictograph for Father (“Ab” in Hebrew) is aleph-bet, symbolized by an ox head as a strong leader (aleph), and a house or dwelling place (bet). The Father was to be a strong leader for His house. “Coincidentally”, it also happens to be the first Hebrew word in the Strong’s concordance (#1).

אב

I was praying about which pictographs out of the 22 Hebrew letters would best represent faith, hope, and love, and here is what I believe I received.

1. Faith is best represented by the cross (tav), as this is the truth that will set us free. In the ancient Hebrew pictographs, the cross was a sign, mark, or memorial.

The cross is a symbol of humility. God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. That is the truth connected to love and life. It is the secret to every marriage and relationship.

2. Hope is best represented by the seed (nun), as it correlates to offspring, heir, and sonship.

This also matches very nicely to power and resurrection life. The promise of eternal life gives us hope. Yeshua is known as the seed of Abraham, producing new life and many sons for its fruit (Rom 4, Gal 4).

3. Love is best represented by the house (bet), as it represents belonging and being cared for as part of a family.

Love is the way we are called to live our lives. Love is what will impact others and is eternal.

Here are some pairings of triads which you might find interesting…

Faith <-> Truth <-> Cross <-> Son              <-> Manna
Hope <-> Life    <-> Seed    <-> Holy Spirit <-> Rod
Love   <-> Way   <-> House <-> Father         <-> Tablets

See if the Holy Spirit leads you to other triads, i.e., righteousness, peace, and joy. How do those words connect with the trinity?

It is these things in your heart which bring glory to God. Faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.

To return to our original text in Hebrews, the scripture concludes that the old covenant is a shadow of the substance that is fulfilled in Christ. In fact the thread of the text comes to these conclusions (Hebrews 10:19-24).

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus,
20 by a new and living way He has opened for us through the curtain (that is, His flesh),
21 and since we have a great high priest over the house of God,
22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water.
23 Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.
24 And let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good works.

By believing, we have life in His name. The same power that raised Christ from the dead lives in you, if you have accepted His offer. It is Christ in you, the hope of glory. We are called to be like Christ who humbled himself for the sake of love.

To conclude, my encouragement to you is to spend time in the presence of God where your heart can find acceptance, hope, and your faith strengthened. Every person is uniquely created. As such, we experience God in different ways. How can you creatively connect with the presence of God? Take some time to rest in His presence, reflect, and be loved. There, your heart will find life.

Your heart in the presence of God (part 4 of 5)

Tablets of Testimony

As a recap from part 3, we are looking at what Mosaic covenant symbols might mean in light of a new covenant. Particularly, I wrote that the ark of the covenant is a metaphor for your heart. The intended destiny for your heart is to be in the presence of God, 24×7. Inside the ark were a pot of manna, a rod, and two tablets (Hebrews 9:4). In this section we’ll look at the symbol of the tablets of testimony and how they map to love.

We just survived another Valentine’s Day that is supposed to be about love, but often isn’t. I lost my wedding ring a few weeks ago. After realizing its loss, I humbly asked people everywhere if they had seen it, to no avail. After looking for the ring in every place I could think of, I had chalked up the loss as having been careless with it in my pocket. As I was helping with tasks around the house on Valentine’s Day, my wife found my wedding ring on the floor of the bedroom. As I reflected on it, it would appear that covenant (what a wedding ring represents), was God’s gift of love to me. In new covenant scriptures, the writer John can be described as a mystic and represented by the sign of the eagle, would go on to pen that “God IS love” (1 John 4:8). The tablets, like love were a sign of covenant, albeit with some marked differences.

As I have written about in other blogs, the law of commandments are often misconstrued by well-meaning people who take scripture in isolation and do not consider what I would call the full counsel of His word. For example, while on hand Paul writes that the law is no longer the yardstick for righteousness (Rom 10:4), we have to consider that Jesus said that not one jot or tittle of the law would be done away with until everything has been fulfilled. Jesus took the law and amplified it to be about issues of the heart. Take Matthew 5:21-22 as one of many examples:

21 “You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, Do not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment.
22 But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Fool!’ will be subject to the Sanhedrin. But whoever says, ‘You moron!’ will be subject to hellfire.”

While I have heard many teachings about the Ten Commandments, the teachings that I had heard never sat right with me until I heard a teaching indirectly from the late Pope John Paul II. John Paul taught about the outward appearance of the law as the ethics of the law (loving God with your mind), and the inner truth as the ethos of the law (loving God with your heart). The law reveals the condition of both your mind and heart, and is a holy tutor to lead you to the place of needing a savior to change your mind and to change your heart. Once your mind and heart have been sanctified, there is no longer a need for that particular law. Love is fulfillment of the law.

With that background, let’s look at a few scriptures which reveal the supernatural creation of the tablets and what their function might be in a new covenant context.

Exodus 31:18, 32:15-16
18 When He finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, He gave him the two tablets of the testimony, stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God.

15 Then Moses turned and went down the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hands. They were inscribed on both sides – inscribed front and back.
16 The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was God’s writing, engraved on the tablets.

To clear up what was written on the tablets, it was Ten Commandments as described in Exodus 20. Deuteronomy 4:13 makes that clear.

13 He declared His covenant to you. He commanded you to follow the Ten Commandments, which He wrote on two stone tablets.

What is important is that you don’t miss that the finger of God wrote the tablets. If you think that Moses carefully chiseled out what God told him to write, you have missed the sign.

I have a confession to make. I got wrapped up in trying to know the form of that tablets. There is all kinds of speculation about what the tablets were like, such as whether they were granite, lapis-lazuli, or sapphire, what form of language was used, and what was written on them. I had a dream revolving being distracted by a blue bottle on top of an airplane that I was flying on. It was a correction dream letting me know that I was spending my time outside the kingdom by the appearance of something (idolatry). Doh! Remember I have been teaching about symbols being about their function (Hebraic) more than about their form (Greek). In seeking what the Holy Spirit would want me to know about the tablets, here are my impressions.

1) Focus on my word
2) The purpose of my word is that love is demonstrated.

I believe the closest metaphoric purpose that we have in a new-covenant context is one of fire. His word is to burn in us like fire as love is fueled with passion.

Jeremiah 23:29
29 “Is not My word like fire” – this is the LORD’s declaration – “and like a hammer that pulverizes rock?”

Luke 24:32
32 So they said to each other, “Weren’t our hearts ablaze within us while He was talking with us on the road and explaining the Scriptures to us?”

I have listed my take on the words that may have been written on the tablets, taking the Jewish perspective on the commandments. There is debate on whether the original pictographs were used or the more modern version of the Hebrew language. The English is for your benefit.

Loving God

I AM Adonai your God.

א אנכי יהוה אלהיך

You shall have no other gods before me.

ב לא יהיה–לך אלהים אחרים על–פני

ב לא יהיה לך אלהים אחרים על–פני

You shall not take the name of Adonai your God in vain.

ג לא תשא את–שם–יהוה אלהיך לשוא

Remember to keep the Sabbath day holy.

ד זכור את–יום השבת לקדשו

Honor your father and mother.

ה כבד את–אביך ואת–אמך

Loving your neighbor as yourself

6. You shall not murder.

ו לא תרצח

7. You shall not commit adultery.

ז לא תנאף

8. You shall not steal.

ת לא תגנב

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

מ לא–תענה ברעך עד שקר

מ לא–תענה ברער עד שקר

10. You shall not covet.

י לא תחמד בית רעך

Again, the purpose of His word is that love is revealed to God’s glory and credit. We are able to love because He first loved us (1 John 4).

There are two important number symbols regarding the tablets. I believe there were five commandments regarding loving God and five commandments regarding loving others as we would want to be loved. I believe there were five commandments on each tablet. This is also in keeping with Jewish tradition. In terms of symbols, five is considered to be the number of grace as revealed in the new covenant. In context, the number of two is the number of witness or of testimony. Without grace, it will be impossible to keep the law. It will be the grace of God that empowers you to fulfill the call to love God and love others. If you think you can love on your own without the grace of God, you have been self-deceived. Your heart will bear witness to the grace of God enabling you to love. There are two parts to this heart. You can not separate the command to love God from the command to love others. If we have one without the other, the law has not been fulfilled. Hebrews 8:10 describes the new covenant function of the tablets of testimony and is the fulfillment of one of the most amazing prophecies written in Jeremiah 31:33.

10 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people.

One of the beautiful things that is revealed in this scripture is belonging as part of a healthy divine family. It was in the heart of God to belong and be loved.

2 Cor 3:2-3

2 You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, recognized and read by everyone.
3 It is clear that you are Christ’s letter, produced by us, not written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God – not on stone tablets but on tablets that are hearts of flesh.

The tablets of stone, while glorious, were hard and rigid. Now we can know that the purpose was always to be about love, and that it was to be soft and pliable.

Love in action brings glory to God. This is what we were created for.

To be continued (conclusion)…

Your Heart in the Presence of God (part 1 of 5)

One of the benefits to interpreting dreams like Daniel or Joseph in the scriptures is that it teaches you to slow down and think about what a symbol might mean in context.

Hebrews 9:3-5
3 Behind the second curtain, the tabernacle was called the most holy place.
4 It contained the gold altar of incense and the ark of the covenant, covered with gold on all sides, in which there was a gold jar containing the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant.
5 The cherubim of glory were above it overshadowing the mercy seat. It is not possible to speak about these things in detail right now.

One day I asked Holy Spirit what the ark of the covenant might mean in light of the new covenant we have in Christ. I believe I heard the following answer:

“The ark is a metaphor for your heart.”

Why? Your heart is a container. It was created to be in the presence of God 24×7. The ark was to be found in the Holy of Holies where the presence of God was found. Whereas in the Mosaic covenant, only the high priest could go in once a year, in the new covenant, the presence of God has been made available to all through the door which is Jesus.

Jude 1:24
24 “Now to Him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory, blameless and with great joy…”

The ark along with your heart were created to bring glory to God and be pure both inside and out. The ark was coated with pure gold both inside and covering the ark. Gold is a symbol representing purity and high value. Gold is a weighty substance (Kavod in Hebrew), and its luster shines to magnify its owner. Gold is a symbol of glory.

Let’s take this a step further. What is inside this ark? According to scripture, three things: a golden pot of manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of covenant. All three of these signs were supernatural. The manna was bread that supernaturally rained from heaven, the rod was a supernatural budding of an almond branch, and the tablets were written by the finger of God. These three items in the ark were to be kept as a testimony for all generations. In other words, they were to be eternal.

I’m going to develop the symbols of manna, the rod, and the tablets in future blogs, but let me provide a teaser as to where we are heading.

According to Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:13, the things that are of eternal value are faith, hope, and love. They are all divine gifts and not man-made. The gifts point to the nature and character of the giver. They are to be carried in your heart.

Manna is a symbol for faith
The rod is a symbol for hope
The tablets are a symbol for love

Carrying these in your heart brings glory to God. It’s a miracle to have them in your heart. They point to Christ in you, the hope of glory (Col. 1:27).

To be continued (part 1 of 5) …