Everyday Christianity: The Presence of the Lord (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 us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly placesin Christ Jesus… Ephesians 2.4-6
Blessed to know God’s Presence
We are exploring the question whether contemporary Christians have become so devoted to gaining all the temporal blessings of God that we may be missing the greatest and truest blessing of all: God’s Presence.
Because we do enjoy so many temporal blessings, especially in this country, and in such abundance, we could very easily conclude both that those blessings are the end we should be seeking, and that the possession of them indicates that all is well between us and the Lord. The goal then becomes to make sure we know as many of these blessings as we can.
There is no doubt that God is lavish in so blessing us His people. The danger is that we become content with the blessings and fail to seek the Lord Himself as earnestly as we should. The result is, over time, that the blessings we so diligently seek become the very ends of our faith, thus landing us in idolatry. For when temporal blessings are pursued as our chief end, and when God is to us mainly the means for realizing such blessings, then the blessings become more important than God, and we become idolators.
What God intends is that we should seek Him, not so much for the blessings as through them, since He would have us know that being in His Presence is infinitely more to be desired than any temporal boon. The Presence of the Lord is the source of all true joy and virtuous pleasure (Ps. 16.11); if we do not attain to this, we will never know the real meaning of eternal life (Jn. 17.3).
God with us
God makes His Presence known in two aspects. If we understand these and begin to experience them, then we will delight in the Lord with all our heart (Ps. 37.4), and He will then grant us to delight in even more of His Presence and the joy, peace, and pleasure that entails.
Only as we commit ourselves daily to exploring and enjoying through each of the aspects of God’s Presence can we experience the fullness of eternal life. And no amount of merely temporal blessings can compare with this greatest and truest of blessings.
The first aspect of the Lord’s Presence is His Presence with us, where we are.
Numerous promises from God’s Word point to the reality of this aspect of the Lord’s Presence: Jesus promised to be with us always (Matt. 28.20). God has said He will never fail nor forsake us (Heb. 13.5). He has given us His Spirit to be in us and with us always (Jn. 14.16, 17). He makes His Presence with us known through the things He has made, which surround us all day long (Ps. 19.1-4). And He is planting His Word deep within our souls to renew and transform us day by day (Col. 3.16).
Objectively, therefore, we know that God has promised to be present with us in all these ways. But knowing His promises is not the same as knowing His Presence through those promises.
We must learn to practice this Presence of the Lord, to apply ourselves diligently to entering God’s Presence by all these means. For through these all we understand how the Lord’s Presence attends us where we are and how He makes His Presence known in, to, and through us for His glory and the blessing of others. As we must make it part of our everyday Christian faith to improve our use of the disciplines that enable us to practice His Presence with us, we may expect increasingly that our everyday lives will be characterized by divine joy, power, righteousness, and holy pleasure.
With Him
The second aspect of the Lord’s Presence by which we know Him as our greatest and truest blessing involves us being present with Him, where He is. This is that sense of the Lord’s Presence to which Paul referred in Ephesians 2.5, 6 and which He calls us to seek in Colossians 3.1-3.
And this is a mystery: In some true sense, we have been seated with Jesus Christ in heavenly places. We now possess an eye of faith with which to penetrate the veil separating us from unseen realities (cf. Eph. 1.15ff.). We must learn to look with that eye of faith and set our minds on those realities—myriads of myriads of angels and departed saints (Rev. 4, 5; Dan. 7.13ff.)—and practice them in such a way as to gain the full benefit of joy, power, and Godly pleasure such a prospect affords. We have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2.16) so we should expect to think as Jesus does and experience what He does as we are seated with Him in heavenly places.
But how do we practice the Presence of the Lord in these ways? What should we expect from such practices? And how can practicing the Presence of the Lord become so much a part of our daily lives that we are able to know fullness of joy and Godly pleasures without interruption, regardless of the circumstances or conditions in which we find ourselves?
These are the questions we will explore in the remainder of this part of our study on “Everyday Christianity.”
For reflection
1. How have you experienced Jesus’ promise to be with us always?
2. What prevents us from delighting in the Lord as we should? How can we learn to delight in Him more?
3. How can you tell when temporal blessings are beginning to become the goal of faith rather than an avenue of it?
Next steps—Preparation: Spend some time this week in solitude, waiting on the Lord to make His Presence known. It may only be a fleeting experience of the greatest and truest blessing, but linger in it as you are able with rejoicing and thanksgiving.
T. M. Moore
Men, check out the fall schedule of reading and study groups. You can register now by going here. Take a look at the clearance sale in our bookstore. All the books in our inventory are free. Order several for yourself and some friends. I would especially encourage you to order a copy of To Know Him, as the subject of that book goes well with our present study.
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment to give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).
A spiritual life is a disciplined life in every facet. How does this work out? Our book, A Disciplined Life, can help you review and improve your own disciplines toward a more robust walk with and work for the Lord. We’re currently reading through A Disciplined Life in our Read Moore podcast.
For a free PDF of The Disciplined Life, click here. And while you’re there, download a free PDF copy of our book, Enjoying God.
And please prayerfully consider supporting The Fellowship of Ailbe with your prayers and gifts. You can contribute online, via PayPal or Anedot, or by sending a gift to The Fellowship of Ailbe, P. O. Box 8213, Essex, VT 05451.
Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter.
