The secret place is not the place of public praise and worship – here is just another expression of the secret place of praise and worship to God that we cultivate elsewhere. The secret place is not the corporate prayer meeting – here we meet in agreement sharing the belief that the Holy Spirit has given us answer in due season; but it is in the secret place of prayer where we apprehend the gift of belief and faith for covenant agreement. The secret place is not the house of prayer on Tuesday nights – the house of prayer is a force to be reckoned with because at this moment, each person brings their secret place into the open, and the measure of blessing and faith for prevailing prayer skyrockets as it were out of this world’s orbit and lays hold of the divine realm of heavenly expectation.

The secret place is the central meeting point of all time, space, and eternity – it is here that the past is discerned, where the present is confirmed, and where the future is set in motion by our very words – this is the place of encounter between man and God, between God and man, between this present evil age and the everlasting light of glory and power and overwhelming mercy and super-conquering lovingkindness; this is the tabernacle of God, the rest of Jesus Christ, the very countenance of the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit.

It is where man, in desperate weakness and dependency – even in the most feeble moment of his existence, he is there made ready to find the true meaning for his life. In the weak things of this world God will be seen in force, in power, in wisdom and in the mightiest strength. For it is Jesus who declares that, “My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). To say it another way, when the strength of man and the wisdom of man is lifted above the power and love of God, man’s self-importance and self-dependency hinders the righteousness of Christ to be manifest in our mortal frames: the strong arm of the flesh prospers nothing, it is only through the complete weakness of the former nature that the force of the Holy Spirit can “save us to the uttermost” (Hebrews 7:25).

This place of secret encounter with God is altogether foreign to our ways and our thoughts. So, we take care to embrace this Word, “Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from your law, I am a stranger in the earth, do not hide your commandments from me” (Psalm 119:18-19), and we give thanks to Jesus Christ as we speak boldly this Word, “Blessed is the man whose strength is in you, whose heart is set on a pilgrimage” (Psalm 84:5). Oh for the song of the stranger upon this earth, this is none other than the pilgrim’s cry, the frontiersman who has placed all his hope in a place that is so separated from this world here below that he becomes consumed with the passion to be one with his God forever and ever on the eternal shores of heaven.

The secret place of meeting is the Holiest of Holies, the most Holy Place; this is the place where no man can enter on his own strength. Just the same as the priestly line of Aaron and his sons, and the following generations of fathers and sons in the order of Aaron. This family line God had chosen as the single unique family to come before God and wait there as the blood sacrifice makes atonement for their sins; even so, now Yeshua has inaugurated the most Holy Place by the righteous sacrifice of His pure and undefiled, innocent blood.

In this way, it is not by our good deeds or the works of our hands, it is not here that we are granted full and free access into the most Holy Place. The “new and living way” (Hebrews 10:20) of the priesthood that never ends, according to the order of Melchizedek; the righteousness of God manifest in the human frame, now and forever to live and to flourish, according to the power of an indestructible life of which we are now sharers through the blood of Yeshua. Secretly our hearts are united with Messiah, as we come into the perfect and holy: still, quiet, waiting and watching, and in ever-eager expectation of the coming glory, the appearing of Christ for salvation.

In secret, those priests of the ancient order (the Old Covenant) would enter in past the curtain that separated the world from the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat that sits above the ark. In secret there was one man appointed by God and called for this very purpose, would leave behind his friends, his family, and everything that was familiar to Him for the sake of appearing before the God who calls. The reason: to be a mediator between the human race (for this is the calling of Israel) and on the other side – eternal life.

In secret the Great High Priest would encounter the glory of God and become “transfigured” to the image of His Creator, and coming out of the inner courts of the temple a completely new man. A secret meeting with the Holy God, even if it is but once a year, is well capable of transforming a person to the point that the secret place is not just a step into the inner court and out of reality, but that the secret place becomes the only true reality in which he lives, and moves and exists. And so, in the place of secret encounter, life takes place and in fact life begins there. However, this life of secret encounter never will end, but the secret place is for the one who has gone in past the veil, the point of no return.

In this I mean to say that once a man goes inside the Holiest of Holies he can never exit unchanged, and in many cases he can never exit at all, but he is there forever. And so the secret place is not some momentary position, or even a heart posture, where in our own caprice we can come and go as we see fit; it is not somewhere to go one day and then not the next. We are created with the longing to be here with God, and our satisfaction comes to fullness as we come and enter into His presence in the place of encounter, unseen by anyone else except one man and the King of Kings. This place is holy and perfect; it is where God dwells, and He calls man to abide forever with Him in the secret place.

Scripture References: Matthew 6:1-6 / John 14:2-3 / Hebrews 6:19-20 /

Written by Gordon MacIlvaine