The Blessing of His Presence (3)

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised usup together, and made us sit together in the heavenly placesin Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of Hisgrace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2.4-7

Two facets
Living toward the promises of God entails seeking the blessings of God’s exceedingly great and precious promises, so that we might live as His promised blessings in and to the world. But if we fail to seek the greatest blessing of all – that of knowing, enjoying, loving, and serving God and Jesus Christ – then the blessings we will bring to the world are not likely to outstrip the blessings they know directly from God by His common grace. What’s worse, failing to seek the Lord Himself as our supremeblessing, we will be in danger of making His temporal and material blessings into idols, and of seeking our happiness and fulfillment in them, rather than in Him.

Because we enjoy so many blessings in this country, and in such abundance, we could very easily conclude both that these are the primary blessings we should be seeking, and that being in possession of these blessings indicates that all is well between us and the Lord.

And if we assumed that, we would be wrong on both counts.

God may well grant many and abundant blessings to His people – as to others as well – at the same time, withholding His presence from them – since that is not what they seek anyway – and allowing them to drift into idolatry, complacency, irrelevance, and worse. The presence of the Lord is the ultimate locus of all joy and virtuous pleasure; if we do not aspire or attain to this, we will never know the true sense or meaning of eternal life (Jn. 17.3).

The presence of the Lord: this is the great blessing promised, and to be sought. And there are two facets to the Lord’s presence which, as we daily explore and enjoy them, bring us into the power, joy, and pleasure of the Lord in ways that cannot be affected by outward conditions. Let’s take a closer look.

With us, where we are
The first facet we may enter of the Lord’s presence is His presence with us, where we are. Numerous expressions of this promised blessing appear in the Scriptures. God promises never to fail in His Spirit’s presence with us (Ps. 139.7-12). He has given us His Spirit to be in us and with us always (Jn. 14.16, 17). Jesus promised to be with us always (Matt. 28.20). God has said He will never fail us nor forsake us (Heb. 13.5). And He plants His Word deep within our souls, to renew and transform us into His image day by day (Col. 3.16; 2 Cor. 3.12-18).

This “with us” presence is real and true. Objectively, that is, as a matter of truth outside us, we may know that God has promised His presence to be with us always, in all these ways.

But we must learn to practice this presence. It does us no good to know objectively that air is essential to life and health. We must continually breathe the air if we would know the promise it contains. The same is true with the with-us-presence of the Lord. We must understand both how the Lord is with us, and how we may engage His presence at any and every moment. Through the disciplines of meditation, prayer, singing, contemplation, and so forth we may engage our always-present Lord and thus enter His pleasure and joy wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, no matter the outward conditions of life. But we will not know the blessings of His presence with us until, like breathing, the disciplines of prayer, meditation, and singing become simply who we are and what we do.

With Him, where He is
The second facet of the Lord’s presence involves us being with Him, where He is. This is what Paul refers to in Ephesians 2.4-7. We have truly and really been seated with the Lord in heavenly places. Our lives are hidden there with Christ, in God (Col. 3.3). By virtue of His Spirit dwelling in us, and His Word being richly planted in our souls, we now possess an eye of faith(Eph. 1.15-23) by which we may penetrate the veil separating us from unseen realities, and enter the Lord’s presence in glory, amid the radiance, splendor, beauty, majesty, and holy clamoring of the heavenly realm. As we set our minds on such unseen realities (Col. 3.1-3; Heb. 11.1), we see by faith both the larger world in which we dwell, and our own world – our daily lives and Personal Mission Fields – from the vantage point of the eternal Christ and His ever-coming Kingdom.

This vantage point fills us with worship and awe, and confidence and hope, as we see from that venue the possibilities of Jesus filling the all things of our lives, more and more, day by day (Eph. 1.22, 23; 4.8-10). This prospect moves us to long for a greater refracting of the heavenly landscape into our earthly terrain, empowers us with creativity and boldness to walk the life of faith in new and transforming ways, illuminates the glory and joy of the Lord in even the everyday activities of life, and results in our manifesting a hope that can startle and pique even the most hardened of our unbelieving friends.

We are in the presence of the Lord, both with us where we are and with Him where He is, at all times, in every situation and circumstance of our lives. But unless we desire to know the Lord’s presence, and practice the disciplines that lead and keep us there, we will never know the boundless blessing that is to be realized, there in the presence of Him Who is our full and ultimate blessing – Jesus Christ, in Whom all the promises of God are “Yes!” and “Amen!”

For reflection
1.  How do you practice the presence of the Lord with you, where you are? What difference does this make?

2.  How do you practice the presence of the Lord with Him, where he is? What difference does this make?

3.  Would you say that your disciplines are sufficient to help you gain the full blessing of the presence of the Lord? Explain.

Next steps – Preparation: Review the disciplines by which you enter the presence of the Lord. How might you improve and increase these?

T. M. Moore

This is part 5 of a 5-part series, Living toward the Promises. You can download this week’s study as a free PDF, suitable for personal or group use, by clicking here. You can learn more about living toward the promises of God by ordering a copy of the book, I Will Be Your God, from our online store (click here).

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.