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The Presence of God
Much is said about the Presence of God in Christian circles today. We have heard more about this "presence" in recent years it seems. But what is the nature of that "presence" that is truly sought out? Or should it be rather stated, For whom is the presence sought out, and to what end is that presence coveted? Is it for the emotive experience of an anointing of sorts, or for some grand new revelation? How highly do we esteem God's Presence?
I was reading a short article entitled "Esteeming the Presence" about this topic on the website of Art Katz, www.benisrael.org, and the profundity of what God is revealing through His servant is significant and quite appropriate for the church. Katz says, "The kind of abiding consciousness of God is the province, I suspect, only of those whose whole life, purpose and reason for being is the Lord’s. Those who are yet independent entities with their own designs, however ‘spiritual’ and ‘consecrated’ will prefer a ‘presence’ to augment that spirituality and confirm them in their ‘dedication.’ Can it be that many of the spurious revivals of our time have given opportunity to the enemy to duplicate in the soul realm of the naïve and unsuspecting coveted experiences the result of which have neither fostered maturity nor been enduring? Better, I think, to have one’s secret life hid with God in Christ with that “pious mind that views all things in God and God in all things.” The one who is anxious to obtain the ‘presence’ risks haunting doubts about himself should he fail and forfeits the very peace where “the abiding companionship of God” [1] waits to be enjoyed."
It seems that we have spent a great deal of time talking about the presence of God, calling down that presence as if it were in some way extrinsic to God Himself. But this cannot be. Because the Presence of God is synonymous with God Himself--they cannot be separated. Imagine asking your dearest friend to give you their presence without themselves being present. It is foolishness. So why do we do this with God? This is what Moses most feared and interceded for on behalf of Israel, that God would not send His people into the promised land without His Presence; that is, without Himself going with them, thus annulling the only true and abiding distinction between the nation of Israel from all the pagan nations surrounding them. Who cares about attaining God's promises if God does not give His very Self in the midst of those promises?
But it is not about feeling the Presence of God, however gracious a gift this is when God chooses to grant it. I was in a prayer meeting recently and the congregation was singing a song, caught up in the emotion of the song itself. When the "worship" was over a pastor stood up and mentioned the awesomeness of God's Presence. And indeed, God's presence is awesome beyond description, but this was not what was referred to at the time. What was really being expressed was the emotion of singing a few words on the screen. Do we need to sing down God's presence? Do we need to work ourselves up into a state where the "presence" is felt? Or is the Presence of God infinitely more? The irony of this service was that immediately before entering the sanctuary God said, "This church is cold when she should have been hot." The word God had spoken was only confirmed when the same pastor stated that he had heard from God that there were those present who had grown cold in their relationships with God. What the pastor did not realize was that the word he received from God was the right word, but he had not allowed the Holy Spirit to fully penetrate his heart with His word, thus proving the spiritual condition of the church family as a whole, not just "a few in the crowd." If the word God had revealed were effectively brought forth, veracious repentance would have been fostered to the end that God would have received the glory He was seeking in that meeting. A friend of mine has referred to this as sermon syndrome--when a preacher will seek God only long enough to hear from God about what He is saying to His people, but does not allow the Father to fully penetrate his own heart with the full import of that word. Sadly, with this church, she has known to a great degree the manifest Presence of God. However, she has stepped into a place of disobedience where programs and plans of men have the preeminence, instead of the one thing that is required of her, that she watch and pray.
It is in situations like this where the marked contrast between a biblical meaning of God's Presence and the modern church's understanding of the "presence" is brought to the fore. The life hid with Christ in God is the only life worth living for the true saints of God. And in this secret place abiding under the insulating and ineffable shadow of God's Presence and Glory the saint can be free from seeking anything in particular from God, because they are there made partakers of Christ Himself. "For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end" (Hebrews 3:14). We would then learn that it is the redemptive work of that faithful and merciful High Priest Who ever lives to intercede that enables us to enter the very holy of holies, into God's unspeakable presence. "But this [man], because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them" (Hebrews 7:24-25).
Do we really esteem God's Presence, or is it a presence that we seek in order to declare God's ostensible stamp of approval on all that we say and do in our services? Whom are we serving in our church services? There is only one abiding reality and that is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He is present where two or three are gathered in His Name. But I venture to question whether we have really gathered in His Name. Think of those times in your spiritual life where things seemed to be inexorably dry, a barren land void of any water or solace from the heat and toil of long days in the sun's relentless rays. Is it not in such places that you learn to cry along with the psalmist, "O God, thou [art] my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory, so [as] I have seen thee in the sanctuary" (Psalm 63:1-2)? David learned to seek God for God alone. And the Psalms of David are the paragon of priestly ministry unto Yahweh for no other purpose than to satisfy His heart, resulting in prophetic adoration for the coming of the Ultimate High Priest and King (Psalm 110). David's greatest dread was not that God would revoke His gifts or calling of kingship from him, but that He would ever expel him from His Presence or take His Holy Spirit away from him (cf. Psalm 51). It took a man after God's own heart to truly comprehend the full magnitude of his indigence without God's Presence.
God so longs to do infinitely more than we settle for in our neat, compact church services. Our choruses, our sermons, our altar calls of a raised hand fall pitifully short of what God is truly seeking in His people. Jesus Christ wants a people who are utterly taken up into His Presence when He does manifest Himself to His own who love and obey Him. "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him" (John 14:21). In all actuality He will only make His manifest Presence known to those for whom it is a present delight and surprise, who are content not with a "presence" to augment their self-serving spirituality and make for better meetings, but with being a delight to the heart of God regardless of what they might get out of the deal.
"Shew me Thy way that I may know Thee," Moses pleaded with God (Exodus 33:12). Because the deepest longing of Moses heart was to know God, God could answer the cry, "Show me Thy Glory." And the day this promise was perfectly fulfilled was when Moses stood on the mount of Transfiguration with the Son of God, beholding the unveiled face of God manifest in the flesh. For, "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him...he that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:6-9; see also Matthew 17:1-9). In this secret place with the Lord Jesus His heart is satisfied all the time, and "the abiding consciousness of the life is to be God, not [my] thinking about Him" (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, June 2nd). It is here the true friends and companions of God are revealed, whose aim is not a "presence" to prop up their spiritual stature, but to be so perfectly one with Christ that He is ever present whether felt or not. And it will be far more accurate to say that the child of God is with the Lord Jesus where He is, rather than Christ being where they are (cf. John 12:26). Then and only then will the saints of God enter His endless peace, where Christ is the true Sabbath rest. "Lo, I am with you always," and "My presence shall go [with thee], and I will give thee rest" (Matthew 28:20, Exodus 33:14).
I was reading a short article entitled "Esteeming the Presence" about this topic on the website of Art Katz, www.benisrael.org, and the profundity of what God is revealing through His servant is significant and quite appropriate for the church. Katz says, "The kind of abiding consciousness of God is the province, I suspect, only of those whose whole life, purpose and reason for being is the Lord’s. Those who are yet independent entities with their own designs, however ‘spiritual’ and ‘consecrated’ will prefer a ‘presence’ to augment that spirituality and confirm them in their ‘dedication.’ Can it be that many of the spurious revivals of our time have given opportunity to the enemy to duplicate in the soul realm of the naïve and unsuspecting coveted experiences the result of which have neither fostered maturity nor been enduring? Better, I think, to have one’s secret life hid with God in Christ with that “pious mind that views all things in God and God in all things.” The one who is anxious to obtain the ‘presence’ risks haunting doubts about himself should he fail and forfeits the very peace where “the abiding companionship of God” [1] waits to be enjoyed."
It seems that we have spent a great deal of time talking about the presence of God, calling down that presence as if it were in some way extrinsic to God Himself. But this cannot be. Because the Presence of God is synonymous with God Himself--they cannot be separated. Imagine asking your dearest friend to give you their presence without themselves being present. It is foolishness. So why do we do this with God? This is what Moses most feared and interceded for on behalf of Israel, that God would not send His people into the promised land without His Presence; that is, without Himself going with them, thus annulling the only true and abiding distinction between the nation of Israel from all the pagan nations surrounding them. Who cares about attaining God's promises if God does not give His very Self in the midst of those promises?
But it is not about feeling the Presence of God, however gracious a gift this is when God chooses to grant it. I was in a prayer meeting recently and the congregation was singing a song, caught up in the emotion of the song itself. When the "worship" was over a pastor stood up and mentioned the awesomeness of God's Presence. And indeed, God's presence is awesome beyond description, but this was not what was referred to at the time. What was really being expressed was the emotion of singing a few words on the screen. Do we need to sing down God's presence? Do we need to work ourselves up into a state where the "presence" is felt? Or is the Presence of God infinitely more? The irony of this service was that immediately before entering the sanctuary God said, "This church is cold when she should have been hot." The word God had spoken was only confirmed when the same pastor stated that he had heard from God that there were those present who had grown cold in their relationships with God. What the pastor did not realize was that the word he received from God was the right word, but he had not allowed the Holy Spirit to fully penetrate his heart with His word, thus proving the spiritual condition of the church family as a whole, not just "a few in the crowd." If the word God had revealed were effectively brought forth, veracious repentance would have been fostered to the end that God would have received the glory He was seeking in that meeting. A friend of mine has referred to this as sermon syndrome--when a preacher will seek God only long enough to hear from God about what He is saying to His people, but does not allow the Father to fully penetrate his own heart with the full import of that word. Sadly, with this church, she has known to a great degree the manifest Presence of God. However, she has stepped into a place of disobedience where programs and plans of men have the preeminence, instead of the one thing that is required of her, that she watch and pray.
It is in situations like this where the marked contrast between a biblical meaning of God's Presence and the modern church's understanding of the "presence" is brought to the fore. The life hid with Christ in God is the only life worth living for the true saints of God. And in this secret place abiding under the insulating and ineffable shadow of God's Presence and Glory the saint can be free from seeking anything in particular from God, because they are there made partakers of Christ Himself. "For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end" (Hebrews 3:14). We would then learn that it is the redemptive work of that faithful and merciful High Priest Who ever lives to intercede that enables us to enter the very holy of holies, into God's unspeakable presence. "But this [man], because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them" (Hebrews 7:24-25).
Do we really esteem God's Presence, or is it a presence that we seek in order to declare God's ostensible stamp of approval on all that we say and do in our services? Whom are we serving in our church services? There is only one abiding reality and that is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. He is present where two or three are gathered in His Name. But I venture to question whether we have really gathered in His Name. Think of those times in your spiritual life where things seemed to be inexorably dry, a barren land void of any water or solace from the heat and toil of long days in the sun's relentless rays. Is it not in such places that you learn to cry along with the psalmist, "O God, thou [art] my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory, so [as] I have seen thee in the sanctuary" (Psalm 63:1-2)? David learned to seek God for God alone. And the Psalms of David are the paragon of priestly ministry unto Yahweh for no other purpose than to satisfy His heart, resulting in prophetic adoration for the coming of the Ultimate High Priest and King (Psalm 110). David's greatest dread was not that God would revoke His gifts or calling of kingship from him, but that He would ever expel him from His Presence or take His Holy Spirit away from him (cf. Psalm 51). It took a man after God's own heart to truly comprehend the full magnitude of his indigence without God's Presence.
God so longs to do infinitely more than we settle for in our neat, compact church services. Our choruses, our sermons, our altar calls of a raised hand fall pitifully short of what God is truly seeking in His people. Jesus Christ wants a people who are utterly taken up into His Presence when He does manifest Himself to His own who love and obey Him. "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him" (John 14:21). In all actuality He will only make His manifest Presence known to those for whom it is a present delight and surprise, who are content not with a "presence" to augment their self-serving spirituality and make for better meetings, but with being a delight to the heart of God regardless of what they might get out of the deal.
"Shew me Thy way that I may know Thee," Moses pleaded with God (Exodus 33:12). Because the deepest longing of Moses heart was to know God, God could answer the cry, "Show me Thy Glory." And the day this promise was perfectly fulfilled was when Moses stood on the mount of Transfiguration with the Son of God, beholding the unveiled face of God manifest in the flesh. For, "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him...he that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:6-9; see also Matthew 17:1-9). In this secret place with the Lord Jesus His heart is satisfied all the time, and "the abiding consciousness of the life is to be God, not [my] thinking about Him" (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, June 2nd). It is here the true friends and companions of God are revealed, whose aim is not a "presence" to prop up their spiritual stature, but to be so perfectly one with Christ that He is ever present whether felt or not. And it will be far more accurate to say that the child of God is with the Lord Jesus where He is, rather than Christ being where they are (cf. John 12:26). Then and only then will the saints of God enter His endless peace, where Christ is the true Sabbath rest. "Lo, I am with you always," and "My presence shall go [with thee], and I will give thee rest" (Matthew 28:20, Exodus 33:14).
posted by Bryan | 2:47 AM
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