Remember, we are in the process of overcoming, which requires seeking His presence. We must die, or take up our cross to experience His presence. God dwells with the humble and resists the proud. Paul said, "I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily" (1 Corinthians 15:31). We are using the Tabernacle as a pattern for seeking Him and dying to ourselves. Only dead men can see God's face!

It is time to leave the outer court, which had the brazen altar symbolizing the blood of Jesus, forgiveness, and our crucifixion with Christ to our old nature and our consecration for service to God. We also experienced the laver in the outer court, which symbolized the Word of God. We saw there that if we allowed the mirror of the Word to judge us and the water of the Word to cleanse us, that we could then put the judgment due Satan on him and be victorious in life. You must spend a lot of time allowing the Word of God to renew your mind. Your mind is the key; it is the beginning place for your overcoming.

We must enter in the Holy Place with thanksgiving. Now it is time to go through the first of two veils from the outer court into the tent itself and that portion called the Holy Place. However before we study the Holy Place we must see what gets us into the Holy Place and how we get through the first door or veil.

I believe that the first veil speaks of entering the Holy Place with thanksgiving based upon this verse from Psalm 100. "A Psalm of Thanksgiving. Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands! Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before His presence with singing. Know that the LORD, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name" (Psalms 100:1-4).

Whether you give thanks or complain reveals a deep character trait. If you are doing too much complaining and not enough thanksgiving, you need to ask God to do some heart changes.

The Word of God commands us to give thanks at all times and under all circumstances whether we feel like it or not. I believe that God mainly needs our obedience to perform His will and purposes in our lives, and giving thanks is a major point of obedience.

• I Thessalonians 5:18 says, "In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

• Colossians 3:17 says, "And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him."

• I Timothy 2:1 says, "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men."

• Phillipians 4:6 says, "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God."

A sacrifice of thanksgiving is the key! The three parts of the soul are the intellect, the emotions, and the will. There are three pieces of furniture in the Holy Place, the Table of Shewbread, which symbolizes the will, the Golden Lampstands that symbolizes the intellect, and the Altar of Incense, which symbolizes the emotions. The will is the key. The time to thank the Lord is when we do not feel like it, when our emotions tell us not to be thankful. That is the time that our will must take over. Like David said in the Psalms, "Bless the Lord oh my soul.." He spoke to his soul and commanded it to praise God especially when he felt bad. Thanksgiving is a function of the will. "And when you offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the LORD, offer it of your own free will" (Leviticus 22:29).

When we enter into thanksgiving and praise to God during the bad times something in us "dies." When we "die," we see God. In Psalm 50 God is saying that He does not really give much value to all of the Hebrew sacrifices compared to the sacrifice of thanksgiving. He told them that He was not hungry for food. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He said that He was hungry for three things, thanksgiving, paying your vows and calling upon Him in the day of trouble. That is what satisfies God's hunger.

1. We need to give thanks for what we see. Do we have a "Gimmee, Gimmee" attitude, or one of thankfulness? The boy was complaining about having no shoes until he met the man who had no legs. Sometimes we don't know how good we really do have it. God is not into giving us more things and solving our problems when we are not thankful for what He has already done; no matter what bad thing we are facing. I know I am that way with my children. I can't help it, I just am, and so is God!

Thank God for life and salvation. These are major issues. God chose you for life and He chose you for the new birth. Thank Him because Heaven is your home. Thank God for the good things. Don't take your good things for granted. Go through a list of blessings in your life.

2. We need to give thanks for unseen. How can we give thanksgiving and praise without being phony? The answer is the Cross! What God has already done? The Cross is an accomplished fact, we just need to see the truth behind it, and we will not see the truth unless we "die," or take up our cross. The Cross has the power to change the seen via the unseen through the Word, praise, and thanksgiving. The Cross is invisible to us today, but it is still a fact in history and believing in it and acting on it through the Word of God will change your condition. Thank God for the things that do not look good because God has entrusted them to you to utilize as raw materials for blessings. Overcoming is about turning junk into jewels for the Kingdom of God. No junk, no jewels!

If you still cannot thank Him, just thank Him for what the Word says. Thank Him because the Word says to and because you know you have victory if you hang on. Thank Him for the promises that He made to you that have not come into your life as yet. How big is your God? Can you trust Him enough to give Him thanks in all things?

How can we be thankful when war is raging against us?

If we are living and walking in obedience to the Lord and not in rebellion, we can be assured that all of the wars we encounter are working for our benefit. Even when we are not in obedience, the wars we experience cause us to repent.

You can be thankful because the Word says that He made you righteous.

You can be thankful because for the righteous person, everything turns out to be a blessing

The exceptions to the above may be because you do not believe it, do not live your life in that truth and do not stand for it. In other words, you do not believe it.

You can be thankful because you know that the Cross has defeated every bad thing in your life. You may have to know that by faith, you may have to hang on, but if you really know you will win. Once you win you will taste the enemy's blood and you will be up for more warfare.

If you are still having a problem with your own self image, you can give thanks to God for making you righteous, just because the Word says that He did, whether you feel like it or not!

If you can peek behind the spiritual veil you will see that your wars in life have to do with destroying the enemy. They are not intended to destroy you. Your thanksgiving puts war and defeat on your enemy; it changes you and glorifies God.

Look at Joshua's experience.

The enemy lost before the war started. Joshua 11:18-20 says, "Joshua waged war against all these kings for a long time. Except for the Hivites living in Gibeon, not one city made a treaty of peace with the Israelites, who took them all in battle. For it was the LORD himself who hardened their (the enemy's) hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them (the enemy) without mercy, as the LORD had commanded Moses."

Psalm 107 is another example.

Verses 23-31 tell about a great storm at sea, and about the people on this ship staggering not only being sea sick but also filled with fear. Being seasick is one of the most terrible experiences I have ever had. One feels completely helpless, even unto death. But one thing a storm on a lake or a sea will do is it will bring up the garbage that normally rests on the bottom and is usually unseen. The storm will bring the bad stuff to the surface so that it can be dealt with and cleaned up. Because of this God tells us that the end of the storm is fruitful therefore we should give thanks for it. "He calms the storm, So that its waves are still. Then they are glad because they are quiet; So He guides them to their desired haven Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men!" (Psalms 107:29-31).

You can thank God and praise Him if you know that He has planted the seed of the Word of God in your heart. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen " (Hebrews 11:1). You have a "substance" planted in your heart, the Word of God, which has created faith. You should be like a farmer who has sown seed and is happy that the crop is coming. He does not complain (cursing the seed) just because he does not see the plant.

If you know that you are on the path of fruit bearing then you can be thankful. If you cannot be thankful for this, perhaps you need to repent and make the Word your source. Many people cannot be thankful because their own selfish plans have not and are not working out. They become depressed, and are full of anxiety over how they should perform.

Be honest, not proud. If there are things in your life that you cannot give thanks for, then be honest with God. Ask Him to speak to you. Ask Him to change your heart because you cannot seem to do it. Ask Him to show you how to find something for which to give Him thanks in those difficult issues.

People have a tendency for not seeking God's Kingdom first. They do not trust that the Word planted in their hearts will bear God's perfect fruit for their lives. They are trying to find God's blessings some other way. They feel that they must work for blessings. They know that God wants to bless them, but they do all the other things first, rather than put God's Word first.

Thanksgiving and praise puts the victory of the Cross on Satan for you today! Psalm 149:6-9 says, "Let the high praises of God be in their throats and a two-edged sword in their hands. To wreak vengeance upon the nations [our spiritual enemies] and chastisement upon the peoples, To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles wit fetters of iron, To execute upon them the JUDGMENT written. He the Lord is the honor of all His saints."

Jonah got the victory through thanksgiving.

"But I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD." So the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land" (Jonah 2:9,10).

Thanksgiving puts us into the Holy Place, which is one step closer to intimate fellowship with God.

Let us take this rare opportunity right now.

I believe that we have a very small window of opportunity to give God thanks and praise now in our afflictions. Let us praise and thank God now, during our afflictions, rather than wait until we have no choice but to thank and praise Him when we see Him in glory! In Heaven, we will lose that opportunity. I believe that this touches God's heart in a very special way.

The following passage is quoted from authored by Rick Joyner titled The Call. In this book the author describes a prophetic experience in a vision. In this chapter he discusses seeing the Lord's reaction to the thanksgiving and praises of His people who are in adverse circumstances.

"Then I was in a different place, beholding a worship service in a little church building. As sometimes happens in a prophetic experience, I just seemed to know everything about everyone in the battered little room. All were experiencing trials in their lives, but they were not even thinking of them here. They were not praying about their needs. They were all trying to compose songs of thanksgiving to the Lord. They were happy, and their joy was sincere.

I saw heaven, and all of heaven was weeping. I then saw the Father again and knew why heaven was weeping. They were weeping because of the tears in the eyes of the Father. This little group of seemingly beaten down, struggling people had moved God so deeply that He wept. They were not tears of pain, but of joy. When I saw the love that He felt for these few worshippers, I could not contain my own tears.

Nothing I had experienced gripped me more than this scene. Worshiping the Lord on earth was now more desirable to me than dwelling in all of the glory of heaven. I know that I had been given a message that could help prepare the saints for the battles that remained on earth, but now this did not mean nearly as much to me as trying to convey how we could touch the Father. Genuine adoration expressed by even the most humble believer on earth could cause all of heaven to rejoice, but even more than that, it touches the Father. This is why the angels would rather be given charge over a single believer on the earth than to be given authority over many galaxies of stars.

I saw Jesus standing next to the Father. Beholding the joy of the Father as He watched the little prayer meeting, He turned to me and said, 'This is why I went to the cross. Giving my Father joy for just one moment would have been worth it all. Your worship can cause Him more joy every day. Your worship when you are in the midst of difficulties touches Him even more than all of the worship of heaven. Here, where His glory is seen, the angels cannot help but to worship. When you worship without seeing His glory in the midst of your trials, that is worship in Spirit and in truth. The Father seeks such to be His worshipers. Do not waste your trials. Worship the Father, not for what you will receive, but to bring Him joy. You will never be stronger than when you bring Him joy, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.'"

We begin here. We walk through here We end up here and take up our cross. in God's presence.