GOD: In the room. In our bodies. (Part 2)

What’s the difference between being actually conscious of God’s presence and being actually conscious of the truth that He is present?

Think about that for a moment.

What is the difference between being actually conscious of the presence of germs, and being actually conscious of the truth of the possibility of germs?

I hate to put God and germs in the same thought.

But they are both invisible and deserving of our respect, though they are intangible.

With germs, we actually hope we don’t experience them, or the results of their presence.  We try to avoid being infected by them, so we do what we must to prevent infection. 

But how do we know we’ve succeeded?  By not getting sick?  In some ways.  But there are germs with us and in us that don’t make us sick.  Of course we could get microscopes and other instruments to detect them.  But how do we know that what we're seeing under a microscope is a germ? We trust scientists or experts, those who have studied and observed them.

We should do the same with God.

There are those who’ve gone before us who have experienced God directly, who lived in actual consciousness of God’s presence.  They tell us that God is with us and in us who believe in Christ, and everywhere at once, whether people believe in His presence or not.  Just as we act upon the knowledge of scientists and doctors who tell us there are germs we must protect ourselves against, whether we’ve experienced them or not, we should act upon the knowledge of those who know God, whether we’ve experienced Him as they have or not.

GOD: In the room. In our bodies.

To put ourselves in the presence of God, or to live in the presence of God, as spiritual writers express it, means to become actually conscious of God as present, or at least so to live as though we were thus actually conscious.  Catholic Encyclopedia, Presence of God

We live by faith, not by sight. The Apostle Paul

Everyone who follows the Lord Jesus believes two things about God:

1.  He is actually and literally present everywhere.

2.  He is actually and literally present inside of each believer’s body.

What interests me in the Catholic Encyclopedia’s words is the idea of at least living as though we were actually conscious of God’s presence.  Why shouldn’t we do this, since we know that God is actually and literally present, in us and with us who believe? 

When we wash our hands, we act as though there are literal and actual germs present, though we can neither see, hear, taste, touch, or smell them.  We know that they can and will act upon us if we don’t respect their presence.  But do we know the same of our Creator?

How would we think if we knew God heard every thought, or saw all we imagined?  We know that He does.  How does this knowledge affect our thoughts?

If we know God is in the room with us, listening to what we say, and watching what we do, how does this affect our words and actions?

If it doesn’t, either we don’t know God is with us and in us, we don’t believe He is with us and in us, or we simply don’t care that He is with us and in us.

The issue isn’t consciously feeling God, at least at this moment of our discussion. 

The issue is how we would act, or should act, KNOWING that God is really in the room and in our bodies. 

 

Three Ways to Experience and Manifest God's Presence (Part 2)

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.  This is what we focused on in the last blog.  If you feel oppressed or enslaved, the Spirit is not where you are, nor is He the source of your slavery.  Yet ironically, by being his “slave,” you will be the most free! 

The second way I mentioned in the last blog for experiencing and manifesting God’s presence is establishing and maintaining order.  It is written, “God is not the author of disorder, but of peace.”  And Jesus said that peacemakers would be called the children of God.  So order is from God, and thus order welcomes God’s presence into our lives.  How so?

The state of perfect peace, which comes about by perfect order, is the state of heaven, or God’s kingdom.  In heaven God’s will is the sole will, the only will.  His kingdom is sought first and foremost.  This is the essence of peace and order:  Perfect agreement with God’s will.  When we experience this rare state of things, we feel like we’re in heaven.  Whether listening to a symphony orchestra, watching a winning team flawlessly unified in achieving victory, or a simple family gathering at the dinner table where each family member is heard and valued without interruption, unity is heavenly—it  is the beauty of eternity.

Three Ways to Experience and Manifest God's Presence

Scripture gives three ways to experience or manifest God’s presence:

 

1.  Maintain and promote liberty.

2.  Maintain and promote order.

3.  Maintain and promote goals that agree with God’s will.

 

These are not the only ways in scripture to experience and share God’s presence, but they are the ones that are on my mind right now.  Let’s look at each one.

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

By liberty, the word of God means complete freedom to be what God made us to be and to do what God made us to do.  God's first words to Adam were these, “From the trees in the garden you may freely eat…” 

Freely. 

It is further written, “If you abide in my words, you are my disciples indeed.  You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  And, “It is for freedom that Christ has set you free.  Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

The Savior is the Liberator, but to experience Him as such, we must submit to Him as Lord.  This is ironic.  We choose freedom by renouncing one master and choosing another.  We renounce Satan, or sin, or self centered living –in a word, ourselves--as our own masters.  In exchange, we submit to God, our Creator and thus our rightful Owner and Master.  In this, we become free to be His, and He is free to be ours.  I experienced something like this exchange in college.

As a member of The Morehouse College Glee Club, I travelled all over the U.S. during Spring Break.  So I’d “give up” my “freedom” during Spring Tour.  I was not free to be home from school (and do “what I wanted”) because I was a “slave” to the Glee Club.  But in this “slavery,” I was free to see cities, states, and places I’d never seen before, as well as free to make the most beautiful music I’ve ever experienced. 

This is the beauty of the liberty God gives us.  When we give up doing what we want, we get to experience more than we could have ever done by ourselves.

And this kind of liberty is not only from God, but is a manifestation of the presence of God.

Notice God noticing YOU (Part 3)

The bouncer stood above the crowd.  Watching.  Noticing.  Unnoticed.  The crowd talked, drank, danced, ate.  He watched for their safety for anyone out of the ordinary.  A man in a red baseball hat slammed his beer bottle down.  The bouncer noticed the anger in this.  Subtle but real. 

"Watch the red baseball cap,” he said on his ear radio to the bouncer on the stage. 
“Copy.” 

The atmosphere felt like a good time, like good moods were the majority at the party.  Red baseball cap left.  He couldn’t effect the atmosphere with is anger.  (If a fight is going to happen, the air thickens and feels electric.) 

He liked being in the background.  Hiding in crowds.  Thinking.  Enjoying the music.  Watching certain people who didn’t notice him watching them.  As he scanned the crowd he saw only fun, and laughter…and her.  Noticing him.  Noticing her.  He never flirted with women, whether checking IDs at the door or dealing with women on the dance floor.  But her look communicated interest, not flirtation.  She seemed genuinely nice and warmly inviting.  She smiled.  He nodded his head.  She waved.  It was official.  They connected.

For the rest of the night the crowd was  simply the crowd, blending into each other, except for her.  They now knew each other. 

God is the bouncer.  

We are the woman. 

This world is the crowd of people,

Living and ignoring God. 

He is always looking and watching. 

When we look back, God will respond.

The eyes of the LORD are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.  Proverbs 15:3

The eyes of the LORD search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.  2 Chronicles 16:9

Notice God noticing YOU (Part 2)

The music ended.  They approach each other. 

Hey.

Hello.

Do you like my dancing?

I love your dancing.

My dancing is me.

Then I love you.

I love you too.

Why do you think out of all of the women on Duval Street, you noticed me?

You danced with a longing that I’ve had all of my life, the dance that makes you my wife.

Then I’m your wife.

And I’m your husband.

Why did you notice me noticing you out of all the men on Duval who stared as you moved?

Tell me what you saw, and I’ll tell you what I felt when you saw it.

Imagine I’m in a field.  Winds blow.  Animals run and eat and express animal voices.  None of them know I am there.  Bees fly.  Squirrels climb trees.  Everything goes on around me, but takes no notice of me while I take notice of it.  Then I see her.  A doe.  Staring at me.  I at her.  She slowly approaches.  Breathless, I wait.  She reaches where I am, and I stare.  The doe extends her nose, and I reach out my hand. She stays with me. 

You are the doe, the rare moment when a beautiful creature notices another creature noticing her. 

I felt your eyes, your attention, you affection, your adoration and appreciation.  It felt warm like a blanket.  I felt the love in your eyes, as if you had never seen anyone dance before.

***

His mother woke up and noticed him cooing while looking at the shadow of leaves on the wall.  “Hi baby boy,” she said.  And for the first time, he clearly and deliberately turned his head, looked her deeply in the eyes, and smiled.  It was different from his newborn smiles (which may or may not be smiles, which may or may not be gas.)  His mother saw the look on the face of an adult that every adult knows:  the look of recognition. 

She cried. 

Before, her baby boy simply saw things happening:  Movements.  Sensations.  Indistinctions. 
She used to watch him, but he was unaware of her watching him and loving him.  Now, starting today, he knew her voice and her face and her eyes. 

He responded to her, and their relationship began. 
He was no longer a baby among many babies.
He was hers, and she was his.  And they were one.

Click HERE for part 3...

Notice God noticing YOU

He hears loud bar music from many loud bars on Duval Street.  Locals drive cars trying to pass clueless tourists who assume they own the road because they’re on vacation.  Duval is packed from its beginning to end with visitors. 

The sounds, sights, and smells are a blur…until he sees her…before she sees him.

She dances and entrances him in her sway, the way she bends time and space around her rhythm.  She reveals what God had in mind when He made Eve, and what Adam felt when she walked to him in the garden.  No seduction or temptation.  Awe and appreciation.  Then it happened.

She noticed him noticing her, and she liked it…and him.  Before she simply danced.  Now she danced for him.  He noticed her noticing him noticing her.  They connected.  The song became their song.  Out of all the men on Duval who watched her dance, she only noticed him noticing her.  All others were a blur for her as well.

***

Dark water

Hums.

Swirls and circles and until it’s just too tight.

Then blinding light and biting cold

Then faces, noises, smells, sounds, hot, cold, needle pricks on finger tips and heels

Then warmth

Thirst quenched.

The voice…the hum that was distant now close..familiar.

Many voices and noises and feelings and blurs and motions.

Then the voice.  Sleep.

Bitter thirsty hunger.  Crying.

The voice. (And sometimes the other voice.)

Sleep.

Crying.  Milk.  The voice.  (Cry for milk and the voice.)

Crying.  No milk.  No voice. 

Loud crying.  Milk.  The voice.  (Cry LOUD for milk and the voice.)  [And sometimes the other voice.]

The face.  Smiling.  With the voice.  (The other face.  Smiling.  With the other voice.)

The same face and voice give milk.  The same other face and voice feel safe.

I know these faces!

I know these voices!

I smile when I see them.

I cry when I don’t.

I know that I exist when they are in the room.

When they are gone, I feel gone.

The moment the dancer noticed her admirer admiring her, the moment she welcomed his admiration, and danced for his admiration….

The moments in which the baby knew the faces of father and mother, and responded to these faces noticing him…

This is the awareness of God’s constant awareness of us, and us welcoming his awareness, dancing for him, smiling back at him.

Notice God noticing.

This is life.

 

 

 

The Presence of God (Part 3)

May I sit with you?

Please do.

The way he said it was unnervingly welcomingly, like he knew everything about her and nothing about her.  It was inviting and comforting, yet completely exciting the way new relationships are.

I usually come here every Friday, but I had an engagement yesterday, so I couldn’t make it.  Saturdays at this time are still very quiet, but I like Fridays better.

I come every Saturday for the same reasons.  I like to hear my thoughts and God’s.

He just said it.  As if everyone did the same thing.

What are God’s thoughts like?

They are like the feeling you have when you realize something that has puzzled you for a long time.  You know how you try to figure something out and you just can’t, so you give up?  Then, when you’ve long forgotten the problem you have a revelation?  You know you didn’t come up with the answer, but it feels like you’ve known it all along?  God’s thoughts feel something like that, but not completely.  The revelation I’m talking about describes it, but there is something sharper and subtler.  It feels like Someone greater than and other than you is showing you something.  Do you know what I mean?

Actually, I do.  I felt like that just this morning!

He smiled.  Her heart felt warmed and stimulated by The Smile behind his smile…

The Presence of God (Part 2)

“I’ve never felt this way before,” she thought.

It was like entering a dream with clarity.  He made time and space seem like friends of the endless horizon.

He seemed to live with God….

One day Staci went to her favorite coffee shop, at a time when she KNEW she’d be the only one there!  Just her, coffee, jazz, and her lap top!  (She hoped there would be coffee shops in heaven!)

Now to her favorite section:  A booth in the back for the especially introverted.  

But someone was already there!  Yet she didn’t mind, and this is why.

As she approached “her booth,” she felt…something…or someone…the closer she got.  The man sitting there was reading, but there was much more to him than that.  He seemed to be “listening.”  Like when you're in a grocery store and a woman seems to be talking to herself, but she has one of those phones in her ear that you can’t see.  Someone was talking to him like that.  He had an invisible spiritual ear phone.

So she stopped about 20 paces from her booth.  She felt like going any further would be an interruption of a very intimate conversation.  Inappropriate.  But she didn’t feel unwelcome by the reading man or the one who spoke to him.  She was actually drawn to both, but she couldn’t explain why.  She felt peace, excitement, fear, love, and something else she couldn’t explain. 

The book and inner voice clearly absorbed all of the man’s attention.  He didn’t notice her at all, but she didn’t feel ignored or neglected.  Instead connected to him, the truth he beheld, and the voice he loved.  Though she revered the time and space in the booth, she now wanted something she never thought she would ever want:  To share her booth!  She no longer wanted it to be “hers,” but theirs:  his, hers, and His.

The Presence of God

How do I know that you're with me?

What do the scriptures say?

“The LORD is with you when you are with Him?”  (2 Chronicles 15:2b)

How are you with someone, anyone?

I choose to be, if they choose to be with me.

Exactly.  And what do the scriptures say about two walking together?

"Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?"  Amos 3:3

Do you agree with me?

Completely.  I have exchanged my will for yours.

Exactly.  So you can be conscious of these choices: 

1. The choice to be with me. 
2. The choice to agree with me.

I am everywhere I want to be and nowhere I don’t want to be.  This is my omniscience.  Though everywhere, to those who don’t care, I am nowhere.  But to those who care for me, I am everywhere they are and will be.  Awareness or unawareness is a choice.  Though every where, to those who ignore me, I am nowhere, and to those who seek me, they find me everywhere.  It is a choice.  You can be in the same room as your wife and be completely unaware of her.  She can be in the same place as you, yet you feel completely alone.  This is how it is with me, but even more so because of my invisibility.  I am with you if you want me to be.  If you choose to be with me, then I am with you.  If you choose to agree with me, then we walk through this life together.

So my consciousness of my choice will become the c consciousness of your presence.

Exactly.  If you believe the scriptures and act upon them, your consciousness of that act is faith in my words.  So in knowing you are with me, you believe what I say about those who are with me:  “THE LORD IS WITH YOU WHILE YOU ARE WITH HIM.”  All you ever have to do is ask yourself the questions,

1. “Am I with God right now? 
2. "Am I in perfect agreement with him?” 

If you can answer yes to those questions with a clear conscience, then you can say with confidence, “The Lord is with me, right now, where I am!”

Then you are with me. right now, where I am. 
Thank you God for the honor of your presence.

The Spirit of God with Me

God’s presence around me feels like the force between magnets. 

 Truly Magnetic Personality.  An invisible peace blanket covering me.  This is how the Spirit feels when He fills me; when He is upon me.  When He surrounds me.

He is Light emanating from my pores.  The glow.  The flow.  Fire.

The Sound behind my tone that makes you feels you’re not really alone.

He is the One filling the room when I come in, causing  the evaporation of deception.

He gives ease to your will so that you feel free to simply be.

The tranquility you feel is real, though unexplainable.

The mental clarity is far from imaginary.

The burning bush that gets and keeps your attention is our communion.

When it feels like heaven, my heart has touched the very heart of God.

Sometimes you feel guilty, facing reality; you know what you were meant to be, and also what you refuse to be.  It feels like coming out of hiding.  Finally.  The possibility of liberty from slavery.

Sometimes you feel lonelier.  Hungrier.  Thirstier.  Your spirit reaches out for Him.  He reaches back, until you pull back.  He will pursue you until you refuse to be pursued.

Do you feel him with us now?

Thinking with us?

Reading with us?

Listen.

Feel.

Focus.

His Omnipresence guarantees His presence.

It’s His nature to be here.

To be near.

To be with us.

With desperate full attention…

Reach out to God.

Why God doesn't just SHOW UP!

I remember three incidents in scripture where God physically appears to someone, or to a group of people:

Abraham, before he destroys Sodom and Gomorrah by two angels.

Moses and the elders of Israel. 

More than 500 people that saw Jesus resurrected.

This would seem to be the easiest way to get people to believe in God.  Or so we think.  Either it is, or we’ve thought of something God has not, which makes us smarter than God.  Or God does know, yet won’t do what He knows is the best way to save us, which makes God evil.  Or, it is actually for our benefit that God doesn’t show up, in every generation, to every person, physically.

The third option is obviously the truth.  But why?

If God showed up in your room right now, and you knew without a shadow of a doubt it was the true and living God, what would be your moral obligation? 

SUBMISSION.

Plain and simple.

Now we assume that if God showed up, and we KNEW WITHOUT ANY DOUBT AT ALL IT WAS HIM, then we’d automatically give our lives to him in perfect holiness, being the good-people-on-the-inside that we are and all.

But God knows better.

Though we can’t imagine looking God in the face and flat out, once and for all, rejecting him, that is exactly what most of us, if not all of us, would do.  In fact, we do it every day.  Every day we act as if we don’t KNOW THAT WE KNOW THAT WE KNOW there is a GOD!  We ignore him.  We even HOPE that evolution is true so we can eat, drink, have sex, and melt into nothingness!  No responsibility.  NO ACCOUNTABILITY.  NO GOD!!  WHAT A LIFE!

Do we honestly believe it impossible to reject God to his face?

Lucifer and one third of the angels did it.

Adam and Eve did it.

Many in Israel did it when Jesus was on earth.

Are we any different from these?

It is God’s mercy that motivates Him to hide himself. 

The less we see him, the better.  The more we see Him, the less of an excuse we have, and the less time we have to change our minds, if we could change our minds at all after seeing him and rejecting him directly.

Thank God He hasn’t come to us physically.

Yet.

Reflections on God's Presence: Part 8-Do you WANT God's presence?

Does God WANT to be with you?

Yes!

His nature is proof of this.

It is his nature to simply be present, omnipresent, as we have discussed.  The Scriptures say that God created our identities, ethnicities, histories, and geographies so that we would all reach out for him, grope for him, and find him, THOUGH HE IS NOT FAR FROM EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US!  In other words, he designed everything about who we are, everything in our lives, for one single purpose:  for us to reach out for him AND FIND HIM, the one who is near all of us!  It is His nature to be near, and His purpose to be near.

From the creation of the first man and woman, to God’s responses to Abel AND CAIN, to God reaching out to Noah and his family, to calling himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to him speaking face to face with Moses and reaching out to the entire nation of Israel, to him promising Joshua he would be with him just as he was with Moses, to him calling David a “man after my own heart,” to every word God spoke through prophets, TO HIM SENDING HIS SON TO BECOME A MAN, TO HIM SENDING HIS VERY OWN SPIRIT TO LIVE IN EACH AND EVER PERSON WHO WANTS HIM TO, IT IS VERY CLEAR THAT GOD WANTS TO BE WITH YOU AND ME!

As it is written,

Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.

So, the question is not, “Does God WANT to be with you?”

But instead, “Do YOU WANT TO BE WITH GOD!?”

Reflections on God's Presence: Part 7--Ominpresence

Because God is everywhere at once, everywhere he wants to be, and no where he doesn’t want to be, we may simply do three things:

1.  Acknowledge him as being everywhere, which includes right where we are.

2.  Welcome him right where we are.

3.  Live our lives as though he is right here, right now.

How do we do this?

Our wills and our attention.  Or our willed attention.

In other words, simply think about God being in the room with you right now.  Focus on the FACT that He IS, by definition of who and what He is, in the room with you RIGHT NOW. 

With human beings, whom you can see, hear, and touch, you focus your eyes on them.  You do this with your will and your mind, but you involve your eyes.  Because God is invisible, the only thing left out of this experience is your eyes, or the five senses.  Not to say that God can’t or won’t manifest himself physically, as of course he has done and will do when Christ returns.  But for now, focus on spiritual experience and what that is like. 

Having focused your attention, by your will, on God’s omnipresent real presence, you welcome him.  Literally.  Verbally. 

“God, I appreciate you being here right now.” 

Or something like that.

Being focused on God’s omnipresence, and honoring his omnipresence, live in the context of his omnipresence.  Because God is with you, watching you, listening to you, hearing your words and your thoughts, seeing your actions and imaginations, how does it affect what you do or don’t do? 

This is the proof of whether you believe God is God.

Reflections on the Presence of God: Part 6--What Distinguishes God's People

Moses said to the Lord, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favor with me.’ If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people.  The Lord replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”  Then Moses said to him, “If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”

We who believe in the Lord are content with His absence.  We are like King Saul.  If God’s power isn’t present, then we’ll simply do our duty, or what we feel best in the situation, and hope for God’s blessing.  But with or without His blessing, we will act.  We will “take the initiative.”  We will “go unless He says stop.” 

Now Jesus Himself never acted or spoke independently of the Father.  He did not begin ministry until the Spirit filled, led, and empowered Him.

The apostles who had been with Jesus Himself for three years, the very ones he empowered to performed miracles, were commanded by him not to begin ministry at all until they had received power from the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Clearly Jesus felt it necessary to have the Spirit’s presence and power, and He thought it crucial for his apostles.  How can we think we’ll be ok without the Spirit?

Moses didn’t think this.

Moses was not content with God’s absence, though Israel at the time seemed more than content.  In fact, they tried to enter and take the Promised Land without God and ended up defeated and embarrassed. 

Moses refused to go anywhere, Promised Land or anywhere else, without God’s presence.  As far as Moses was concerned, God’s presence defined and distinguished him and God’s people. 

Not the 10 commandments.

Not the ceremonial laws.

Not DNA from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The Presence of God!

As far as Moses was concerned, there was NO WAY for anyone to know that God was pleased with him and the nation unless God was with them.

Not obedience to the 10 commandments, ceremonial laws, or the circumcision of Jewish men.

THE VERY PRESENCE OF GOD!

This is what I want to distinguish me as a husband, father, officer, and minister.  This is what I want to distinguish the church of the living and alive Jesus Christ!  The Spirit descended for this very purpose.  May He be known by all who encounter me and those who believe in the Lord!

Reflections on the Presence of God: Part 5-True Church Experience

Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the “tent of meeting.” Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent. As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses. Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to their tent. The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.

When Jesus is with two or three people who agree to the glory of His authority, this is church!  When there is a specific place and time in which people can come to meet the risen Lord, and KNOW that they will meet Him, church is truly experienced.

What happened with Israel should happen today.

People knew where to go to meet with God. 

They knew and saw their leader speaking with God face to face as friends speak.  And this inspired worship. 

They had the option to meet with God, and they also had the option to never leave where He was.

Those who believe in Christ are now “the tent of meeting.”  Our bodies are the individual temples of God, and together they are collective temples of God’s presence with and in His people.  When people see us pray, individually and collectively, they should bow down in awe and reverence because of the experience of God’s very real presence.

Will they see a dense cloud pillar? Or even flaming tongues like on the day the Spirit came to the first church? 

They just might!

But even if they don’t, they will feel or sense God with us and in us.  Paul said the spiritual gifts are manifestations of the Spirit.  And Jesus promised those who have and keep His commandments that He would manifest Himself to them.  Those who draw near to God are promised God’s nearness to them.  God’s presence and nearness to His people is what distinguishes Him, and them, in all of the earth.

Reflections on the Presence of God: Part 4--Moses

The Lord said to Moses, “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you.” Then Moses told the Lord what the people had said.

God promised Moses three things in the scriptures above:

1.  He would come to Moses.

2.  Israel would hear God speaking to Moses.

3.  As a result, they would always put their trust in Moses.

This coming to Moses by God was very real, tangible, and visible.  The dense cloud could be seen, and it was not an ordinary cloud, but the dense cloud of the presence of the One True God! 

God came to Moses, and everyone with Him could see it! 

God did it ON PURPOSE, TO BE SEEN BY THE PEOPLE MOSES LED!

What more could a leader want than God to come to him or her in the most real way, so that the followers would see and know that God is with this leader?!

I just can’t think of anything better than this!

The Israelites had NO reason to distrust Moses.  We as Americans may have reason to distrust our leaders, even the ones we vote into office.  But God is perfectly trustworthy, and His choice of leadership is perfect.  When he backs a leader by His own presence, this leader is perfectly trustworthy, only because God is perfectly trustworthy.  No other nation had the privilege of being the nation with whom God Himself resided.  And no other man on earth except Moses spoke to God face to face!

Reflections on the Presence of God: Part 3--Joseph

When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant.

The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.  ~Moses, regarding Joseph

As it was with Abraham, so it was with his grandson Joseph: 

God’s presence and prosperity seen clearly.

But with both Joseph and Abraham, those who see God with them also benefit from His presence with them.  In other words, just as God promised, Abraham and his descendants were blessed, and they were a blessing to other they encountered. 

This too is our birthright as the children of God, and the children of Abraham.

We who believe in God, all of us who trust in Christ Jesus the Lord, have the blessing of the presence of His Spirit in us, empowering us to do God's wil; to not only be blessed, but to be a blessing to everyone in our lives.

I must reiterate that it is ONLY in the context of God's will that any of what I’ve written applies at all.  When we are with God, He is with us, as He said to King Asa in 2 Chronicles.  He is literally with us, in the very room with us, when we do His will for His glory.  We have no choice but to succeed when we obey the living God!

But for me, what means more than anything else, is God with me, and this being seen and known clearly….