Episode Transcript
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Abba, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Abba, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Exodus 33:7–11
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. And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent. As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses. Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to their tent. The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.
CONSIDER THIS
Don’t you absolutely love this text? Here are seven things I love about it.
1. Moses created sacred designated space for prayer and gave it a name: the “tent of meeting.” Have you ever created this dimension of space for prayer? Would you consider it?
2. Anyone could go there if the purpose was to “inquire of the Lord.” What a great phrase. Our prayers tend toward asking God for many things, but how often are we specifically “inquiring of the Lord” about the matters of our times, the curiosities of our circumstances, and the puzzling dilemmas of our days? It's a weakness for me.
3. This tent was set apart. It was “outside of the camp.” I picture a steady stream of people coming and going to do business with the Lord. It reminds me of the Prayer Mountains the South Korean church is known for. I see this as different from the prayer room in my home. It requires a deeper intention and more decided action to go "outside of the camp." Notice how the text not only tells us it was "outside of the camp" but that it was "some distance away." (If you have an extra few minutes today, run down Mark 1:35, Luke 5:16, Luke 6:12, and Luke 22:41–42 for more inspiration.)
4. Moses modeled this practice not in order to be a model but because it was the very source of his life. When people saw it happen, it arrested their attention, and they rose to their feet. The witness of true holiness is palpable. Everyone knew that Moses’s holiness did not come from himself, or his practices, or even his prayer life. It came from the Lord, who abided in the cloud.
5. Verse 11 must be one of the top ten most profound texts in all of the Bible:
The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.
In those days, this kind of privilege was beyond rare. Unheard of would be more like it. For us, this is the common gift of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Now hear this: “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I have learned from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15).
The problem is not that it is common but that we take words like these so casually. To the extent we are not utterly stunned and blown away by texts like these—to that extent, we are asleep. The good news is that awakening is ever near to the holy discontented who will come to grips with this.
6. When someone, anyone, lives into and out of an authentic friendship with Jesus and really gives themselves to him, it becomes a clarion call to worship to thousands and ultimately millions. Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to their tent. Notice how even now, thousands of years later, this story awakens something deep within us, inspiring us to rise up and worship this God.
7. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent. The people in our lives are always watching, taking note of the things we can take for granted. From time to time, the Lord will entrust us with a young aide, a Joshua-type, who will not only pay attention but will seem to double down their focus on what they glean from our lives.
We get a glimpse here of spiritual parenting, and there is an absolute dearth of it in our time. It’s no one’s fault. The reason most of us aren’t coming alongside younger believers is because no one came (with any intention) alongside us. What we need is a generation who will step forward as first-generation spiritual parents, who will step out of their comfort zone and stumble awkwardly at times into a new kind of relationship.
It would be easy now to press hard on the need to go and create a new and special place of prayer, a "tent of meeting" somewhere, some distance away beyond your house. And maybe if we lived in the days of Moses, that would be in order. But we live in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the age of the Holy Spirit. It leads us to this breakthrough implication:
I am the tent of meeting. You are the tent of meeting. We are the tent of meeting. We don't need to go and make the tent of meeting to be some physical structure somewhere other than here. Places matter, and structures are good and fine, but they are not the point. Because Jesus's body became the curtain, our body and our bodies together become the most holy place—the very dwelling place of God.
I think what I am trying to say is everywhere we go, we carry the tent of our physical body with us. That said, sometimes (it was often for Jesus), we need to walk the path some distance away and outside of the camp to host the tent meeting. Are you reading me, friends? You and I and us together are mobile tabernacle houses of prayer. If we can make this shift from a tent of meeting being some physical structure outside of us to the tent of meeting being our very bodies—the implications will be mind-blowing.
THE PRAYER FOR DELIVERANCE
Lord Jesus, you are my Deliverer.
I receive your deliverance from my casual sleepiness in prayer. I also receive your deliverance from striving harder after a deeper prayer life. What I want is to receive your deliverance into your way of often withdrawing to lonely and out-of-the-way places to abide in friendship with God.
I am a tent of meeting, Lord—a place where we can meet together face-to-face as a person talks to his/her friend. Lord Jesus, it is such a marvel that you would call me friend. Forgive me for neglecting our friendship. I don’t mean to. Awaken me again, in yet a new way, to the depths of friendship with you. What could be better than that?
It will be for your glory, for others' gain, and for our good.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be. World without end, amen! Amen!
