In the ancient temple, a thick veil used to separated common men from entering into the Holy of Holies, the place where God dwelt with His people. Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross did away with that veil and made God accessible to everyone that would believe. We can, in a sense, enter into the Holy of Holies. In fact, Tozer writes in chapter three of The Pursuit of God:
God wills that we should push on into His presence and live our whole life there. This is to be known to us in conscious experience. It is more than a doctrine to be held; it is a life to be enjoyed every moment of every day.
How many can claim that experience? How many enjoy that life? Very few. Most sense the call, but fail to draw near. Most grow old and tired never having entered into His presence. Why? What is it that keeps us back?
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 the self-life which we have never truly acknowledged, of which we have been secretly ashamed, and which for these reasons we have never brought to the judgment of the cross.
That last paragraph is very full. I’d encourage you to read it again and again. In particular, consider that “close-woven veil of the self-life”. It is woven of the “fine threads of the self-life, the hyphenated sins of the human spirit”. Specifically, these include self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them.
Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us.
This veil cannot be removed by learning or by doing, but must be ripped apart by God Himself. The only way to see God is to stop seeing ourselves. I’d encourage you to go to Him and sincerely beg Him to nail it to the cross. It will be painful, but effective. The joy that comes afterward is inexpressible…and inevitable.
