Entering the Holy of Holies -- Part 3

"Entering the "Holy of Holies" - the "Most Holy Place"' - Part 3 Tozer states, "It is the veil of our fleshly, fallen nature living on, unjudged within us, uncrucified and unrepudiated...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." This veil is woven of the threads of the self-life - the self-hyphenated sins that are just so much a part of who we are - subtle and powerful - the human sinful spirit in each of us. Not necessarily what we do, but who we are - woven into our personality, our very nature.
The "self-sins" of self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love, self- gratification, etc. They've been with us so long that we don't even notice them; they dwell so deep within that we aren't even aware of them until God focuses His light upon them and reveals them to us. Tozer says in Man: the Dwelling Place of God, "Self is one of the toughest plants that grows in the garden of life. It is in fact, indestructible by any human means. Just when we are sure it is dead, it turns up somewhere as robust as ever to trouble our peace and poison the fruit of our lives."
The second thing I found in this reading, I am calling 'God's Part'.
Self is like an opaque veil that hides God's face from us. We want instruction to know what to do, but the veil must be removed by the work of God - it is a spiritual experience. We must bring our "self-sins" to the cross for judgment. God will do the work, if we want it done. He must do everything for us before we are free. Isaiah 26: 12 says, "LORD, You will establish peace for us, for You have done all our works in us." I remember one time many years ago praying that God would remove the sham from my life - everything false - little did I know that for the sham to be removed I needed to be prepared to be purged. We need to know that it will be worth it. It can be and will be painful. There is nothing pretty about the cross. The cross is an instrument of death, and is rough, but effective. "Hinds Feet on High Places" by Hannah Hurnard is a book that I read many years ago about the experience of surrendering those self-sins. I would recommend it to you for reading.
More recently I experienced looking in the mirror one day and just saying to the Lord, through my tears, "You just want to squeeze all of me out of me, don't You? But to fill me with Yourself." May it be so.

djm