The Secret Place

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.
Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Matthew 6:6

Many of us want to grow in our faith. Many of us want to become more like Jesus. However, the
realities and busyness of life can so easily take hold and before we know it a decade (or a few)
can pass us by and we are still no more like the Saviour.

For those of us wanting to grow in our intimacy with the Almighty and see greater power in how
God uses us, Exodus 33 and 34 is chock-full of helpful insights. Moses sets aside a specific place
in which he would commune with God called the ‘Tent of Meeting.’ As he created space for
God, the Lord came in a pillar of cloud and He would speak to Moses ‘face to face’ (Exodus
33:11). In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus, frustrated by the fake showmanship of the religious elite’s
prayers, teaches his disciples how to pray. He tells them to go find a private place and seek God
one on one, and that God will reward this behaviour (Matthew 6:6).

As we have been gathering to pray at ‘Prayer Room’ on Wednesday nights in the church at
Robina we have seen that it is often in the lingering where God meets us. When we create space
to pray and seek God, either individually or corporately there can be a temptation to rush and
move on to the next thing. However, God often meets us most in our waiting. There is a
profound throw away line in Exodus 33 which is easy to miss, ‘Moses would return to the camp,
but his young assistant Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent’ (v11). In the hurried culture in
which we live God invites us to come away with Him to the secret place and like Joshua, linger
in His presence. This idea of lingering in the secret place can be seen throughout scripture. It
says in Psalm 91:1, ‘He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the
shadow of the Almighty.’ and in Isaiah 40:31, ‘those who wait on the LORD shall renew their
strength.’

God’s love for us can sometimes be a difficult concept to fully comprehend and embrace.
However, for some of us, more challenging than the idea that God loves us is that He actually
likes us. It says in verse 11, ‘The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a
friend’ (Ex. 33:11). If we slow down and create space to meet with God throughout our day,
friendship with Jesus is something we can all experience. I don’t know about you but I find the
idea of being a servant of God much easier than being His friend. But a friend we are (if we let
Him), ‘I no longer call you servants’ Jesus says, ‘instead, I have called you friends’ (John 15:15).
There is much evidence, both from research and the human experience to suggest that we
become like those we spend the most time with. If we want to become more like Jesus then we
must prioritise time with Him in prayer. We must prioritise friendship with Him.

Study of God’s Word is a crucial aspect of our faith. It is through scripture that we hear God
speak to us and grow in our knowledge and understanding of the God we worship. I myself long
to become more biblically literate both for my personal walk with the Lord but also for ministry.
However, it does us no good if we know the Word of God and miss the God of the Word. Tozer
writes, ‘The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men [and women] to an intimate
and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His
Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center
of their hearts.’

After Moses had spent time with God atop Mount Sinai, it says that ‘his face was radiant because
he had spoken with the LORD’ (Ex. 34.29). When we spend time with the Lord in the secret place,
lingering in His presence and growing in friendship with Him, we begin to reflect His glory.
Having led many small groups on Alpha over the years I have witnessed the radical
transformation of people's outward appearance after encountering Christ. Jesus is the light of the
world, so it should be no surprise to us that when we spend time with Him we too reflect this
light.

As we as a church long to see lives transformed by the love of Jesus here on the Gold Coast, the
greatest way we can share this love is through an overflow of God’s love in our own lives. Just as
Moses’ radiant face caused awe and wonder amongst the Israelites. So will our countenance
communicate something to the world around us of the God we worship. The greatest way we can
grow in mission as a church is to prioritise the secret place. Ravenhill writes, ‘The prayer closets
of God's people are where the roots of the church grow.’ The roots we put down in prayer as a
church today will be what sustains and enables mission for tomorrow. So let us go to the secret
place and seek Jesus, our Lord, Saviour and friend.

What a friend we have in Jesus,
all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear,
all because we do not carry
everything to God in prayer!
Joseph M. Scriven