There’s something inside me that wants to go where someone says I’m not allowed to. I still remember the time when I was in my early teens and a local movie theatre had closed down. My friends and I spent many hours scheming how we might get inside and what we would do if we ever did. (I believe the consensus we came to  would be the same of every teenage boy…hooking up a Nintendo 64 to the movie screen projector.) Some may call it being nosy, I just call it an extreme case of curiosity.

In Ezekiel 44, God is showing the prophet a vision of the new temple. In the midst of the vision, God begins to give Ezekiel some guidelines for the priests. Speaking of the priests, God says in verses 17-18:

“When they enter the gates of the inner court, they shall wear linen garments. They shall have nothing of wool on them, while they minister at the gates of the inner court, and within. They shall have linen turbans on their heads, and linen undergarments around their waists. They shall not bind themselves with anything that causes sweat.”

The temple in Ezekiel’s vision, much like the Tabernacle of Moses & the temple that Solomon built, had an outer court & an inner court. The outer court was where the priests ministered to the people and the inner court was where the priests ministered to God. In the passage of Scripture we just read, God states pretty clearly his requirements regarding entrance into the inner court: No Entry For Sweaty People.

Though initially this sounds quite odd, there is a profound truth waiting to be discovered by you and me which will bring much needed freedom to us as worshippers.

Shame. Regret. Pain. Frustration. Depression. Failure. These are just a few of the things that burden our spirits. These are just a few of the things that we bind to ourselves that make us sweat. They are burdens we are not meant to carry, but we too often clothe ourselves with them. If allowed to take root, these are the things that turn into enemy  strongholds in our lives. They can even progress to where we begin to find our identity in them; wrapping them around us, not able to imagine life without them bound to us. They are heavy burdens that the Lord does not intend for us to carry, yet often in a sense of false humility we begin to think that they are the cross the Lord has given us to bear. In a twisted form of pride, we often ask the Lord to help us deal with them, but don’t really believe He wants to remove them. So we’re left standing at the threshold of His Presence, a sweaty people, in desperate need of something that we have a hard time believing the Lord wants to give us…relief.

Have you been in that position before? Maybe you’re there now. I’m in that place right now. I’m beginning to see that I’m carrying things that the Lord doesn’t want me to carry. And it’s heavy and it makes me sweat because I’m trying so hard to find a way to deal with it. When I come to the gates of the Inner Court, the very same place that God showed Ezekiel, I’m not ready to worship because of one simple fact; my eyes are on the wrong person.

When we enter into the Presence of our King, our eyes must be set on Him. When we begin to see Him for who He is, we cannot help but worship, we cannot help but declare His goodness, His beauty & His glory. Our perspective changes when we behold Him. The burdens that we carry can be taken away when Jesus intrigues us more than them. True worship begins and ends with the fixation of our eyes. This is why sweaty people aren’t permitted to minister in the Inner Court; sweaty people have their eyes on themselves. Sweaty people focus more on the things they have bound to themselves rather than lifting their eyes off of themselves, leaving them wide open and vulnerable to the Presence of God.

The Lord wants to fascinate us, but we have to look at Him to be fascinated. The Lord wants to bring us a sense of holy wonderment, but we have to give Him our attention. The Lord wants us to be obsessed…with Him. We are changed by what we give the most attention to. The Inner Court is a place of obsession and fascination and wonderment. In that kind of spiritual atmosphere, there’s no room for shame or regret or pain or frustration or depression or failure. Before entering into the Inner Court to minister before God, He wants to lift all those burdens off and cool us down with His refreshing breeze.

I have to say that I struggle with this. But I know that Jesus wants to bring me relief from the things that I’ve bound to myself. He wants to shower me, give me a new set of clothes and bring me into the Inner Court where I’ll never be sweaty again. Then and only then will freedom come to worship. Freedom for a people who have been given relief.

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