relationship

His Nature: Omnipresent

jpsetfreeLeave a comment

God is always present. He is everywhere, at all times. He is at the farthest reaches of the universe and beyond it. At the same time He is right beside you, even within you. That is what it means for Him to be omnipresent: All-Present. He is everywhere, simultaneously, all the time. You cannot find a place that God’s Presence won’t already be. There is no place that He wont go.

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your Presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me. Psalm 139:7-10

All that exists, does so within His Presence. For God is greater than all of the universe and is in fact larger than the universe. Even hell exists within His Presence. Many believe that hell is the absence of God’s Presence. 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9 says it is to be “away from the Presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might” but this is not the complete absence of His presence. Those in hell will not enjoy the manifested Presence and His glory. While His presence may not be tangible or visible, He will still be present there for there is nowhere God cant go.

So there is nowhere that God can’t go and there is never a time in this life that God doesn’t show up. The church can take comfort from this truth. I already discussed previously how God is relational in His nature. His omnipresence is a key part of being able to walk in relationship with Him. We may be abandoned or forgotten by others, but God is still with us, always. And while we may long for human relations, we always have access to relationship with God.

It is because of this that the idea of loneliness is proven to be a lie. You are never actually alone. You are never on your own. God is always with you and watching over you. The enemy wishes for us to feel and become isolated to make it easier for us to succumb to temptation. But the Lord is always there, ready to guide us through life.

Hidden and Manifest Presence

We can understand the Presence of God in two context: hidden and manifested.

Hidden means when you don’t feel Him, hear His voice or see the evidence of Him working but the truth that He is present still stands. It is during this time that we put our faith in His presence. We have to trust that He is still there and believe the truth of His omnipresence. We have faith that God has not abandoned us, as many of us have probably believed in these times.

Manifested means His Presence is tangible. You feel His Presence. You hear Him speak or see Him at work. The experiencing of Him may vary from person to person but you get the impression that God is here, right now! This is the one everyone wants to experience.

Practice the Presence

“You don’t have to pray out loud; He’s nearer than you can imagine. It isn’t necessary that we stay in church in order to remain in God’s Presence. We can make our hearts personal chapels where we can enter anytime to talk to God privately.” – Brother Lawrence

If you have never read Practicing the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence I strongly recommend it. It is a very short book that is simple and easy to understand. In it Brother Lawrence explains living in the Presence of God on a consistent basis. To practice the Presence is to turn your thoughts and affections to God as often as possible. Set aside time in your day to just rest in Him. Don’t busy yourself with other things, turn off your phone, and just spend time with God.

“The Presence of God is the concentration of the soul’s attention on God, remembering that He is always present.” – Brother Lawrence

Prayer is no longer a series of words that seem to go no further than the ceiling. Instead prayer becomes real communication between you and Christ. You can speak, knowing that He is in the room with you. Then you listen and see if He responds. Your problems no longer seem to be overwhelming. You can just lay them before Him and ask Him to take care of them, resting in the knowledge that He hears your plea, and sees the troubles of your life.

You know longer read the bible to find Him. You already found Him, or more accurately He found you. Now, you can read the bible with Him, asking Him what things mean and receive direction and teaching from Him.

To many Christians, “relationship with God” is a metaphor for practicing spiritual disciplines. Praying, fasting, attending church, reading the bible, doing good deeds. They don’t see it as a real thing. But relationship with God is real and it’s His omnipresence that is key to that truth. Practicing the Presence makes that relationship come alive!

Holy Spirit, I pray that every person who reads this and all who call on You to draw close to them, experience deep intimacy with You. Make Your Presence known to them and banish the feelings of loneliness from their hearts. Take them from knowing You exist to experiencing Your existence as they learn to walk with You through life. Amen.

The Pursuit of the Presence

jpsetfreeLeave a comment

“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”  Jeremiah 29:13

Mistaken Identity

I remember when I was younger learning about the different people in the bible during Sunday school. Samson with his super-strength, the boy David taking down Goliath, Moses parting the Red Sea. I remember when I learned about Joshua how I paid a little extra attention because I knew that this was the man that I was named after. I grew up looking at Joshua as a great warrior and military commander, picturing him as being physically strong and quick thinking on the battle field. This is how I thought of the man and without fully understanding why, I thought of myself as being like him. I felt that my identity needed to be that of a man who was strong, brave and decisive. And yet, most of my young life was spent being anything but those things.

At fourteen I left the faith and became an atheist. By nineteen I was so afraid of conflict and making mistakes that I was practically mute, not wanting to talk to anyone or come out of my room. Fear dominated my life. After returning to Christianity I spent a few years attending church, reading everyday, praying as much as I could and trying my best to be a good Christian. Yet I kept succumbing to sin no matter how hard I resisted and was still very fearful and never did or said what I really wanted to. After about four years of getting nowhere with overcoming the same sins I eventually gave up on trying to not sin. I told God that I didn’t know what to do anymore, instead I needed Him to do something. And He did. I had an encounter with God that brought me out of a performance driven lifestyle and a focus on sin and ushered me into a real living relationship with God. A friend of mine had invited me to go to a place called Potters Place, which was a couple’s private property that they had turned into a place where anyone could come and spend time with the Lord away from all the busyness and noise of life.

Ill never forget that first visit or what the Lord spoke to me that day. At the time I was reading the book of Exodus and as I was reading chapters 32 and 33 I noticed something for the first time. As Moses was coming down the mountain he encountered Joshua. Remember that Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights without food or water, which means that if Joshua was with him then he also didn’t eat or drink for that amount of time. So for forty days Joshua was somewhere on the mountain while Moses was at the top communing with God. And then when Moses set up the tent of meeting it says that Moses would go to the tent and Joshua would follow him but when Moses would finish he would return to the people yet Joshua remained at the tent(Ex. 33:7-11). And then I remembered the story of Joshua’s first day of leading the Israelites into battle (Exod. 17:8-13). The success or failure of Joshua and the Israelites was completely dependent upon Moses’s obedience to Gods command to keep his arms raised. And that’s when it hit me. Joshua wasn’t a great military leader or a warrior. In fact, when he lead Israel into the promised land he was at least 80 years old! His great success depended on something else.

Life in the Presence of God

I felt that the Lord was saying to me that Joshua was able to lead Israel, be victorious against thirty-one kings, defeating five at the same time, and tell the sun and moon to stand still and they did; not because he was such a great man but because he was a man after the Presence of God. Although the scriptures don’t tell us exactly what happened with Joshua while Moses was receiving the commandments, one can imagine that Joshua must of had an amazing time in the manifest Presence of God. Enough so that he didn’t want to leave the Tent of Meeting, the place where he could encounter God regularly! Joshua pursued life in the Presence of God above everything else. This resulted in a lifestyle where he was aware of the Presence even when he was busy.

I remember declaring to the Lord that that’s what I wanted to be: a man after the Presence of God. And in the past couple of years that’s exactly what I have been pursuing. Since then I have actually stopped focusing on my sins and performance and have overcome many of my fears. How? God did it. I dedicate as much free time as I can to just sit in the Presence of God and wait on Him to move or to speak. Sometimes I just praise Him and worship Him, other times I don’t move until He gives direction. Its not about reading more verse or saying more prayers.

The Omnipresence of God

God is omnipresent, which means that He is always present, He is always with us. A relationship is mutual which means that its success is not dependent just on how well you behave. It depends on two people showing up. And in this case God always shows up. Its up to us to search  for Him. “Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice! Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His Presence continually!” 1 Chronicles 16:12-11

His Presence is always with us, this is a truth about Gods nature. This never changes so we can trust Him to always be there. Loneliness is a lie of the enemy, its believing that no one is there with you which is impossible in light of the truth of Gods Presence.

The feats that Joshua performed is a great example of what a life lived in the Presence of God can look like, when a man or a woman lives with a constant awareness of God. What’s even greater still is that Joshua lived in the old testament period and did not have the indwelling of the Spirit. The same God who parted the Red Sea and came down in a pillar of fire and smoke now resides in you and me!

All it takes is for us to begin by taking a few minutes a day searching for Him. An even simpler discipline then reading scripture or praying is just focusing your attention towards Him. Let your mind stay upon Him, not upon your sins or worries. In His Presence is where we find freedom, hope and the truth of who we are as children of God. “For how shall it be known that I have found favor in Your sight, I and Your people? Is it not in Your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and Your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” Exodus 33:16

The Key to Intimacy

jpsetfreeLeave a comment

“It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.” Luke 23:44-45

The Veil

Upon breathing His last, Christ’ death initiated a rather tumultuous event. The light of the sun failed, leaving the land in darkness, the earth shook and rocks split in two. And within the temple the veil was torn in two, from top to bottom. The veil created a physical separation between the Holy of Holies, the area where only the high priest was allowed to enter and offer sacrifice once a year, and the rest of the temple. This veil is a physical representation of a spiritual separation between the perfect God and fallen man. And the tearing of it in two is the removal of that divide. Just as His death opened the Holy of Holies by tearing the veil, it also enabled us all to have entrance into the Presence of the Holy God.

But  it was not the resurrection of Christ from the dead that caused this but the death itself.  It was the sacrifice of His life on the cross as payment for our sins that led to such a great blessing in being able to draw near. His death earned us the gift of salvation, but the event of the tearing of the veil showed that He also intended for us to approach Him in relationship. Christ set for us an example in everything that He did on earth; in His life, His suffering, His death and resurrection. His death and the tearing of the veil, shows us that sacrifice is the key to intimacy. His death and subsequent tearing of the veil initiated the intimacy and allows us to respond similarly. Many Christians accept the salvation that His death bought us yet still fail to enter into real relationship with Jesus. If we want to draw close then it will require sacrifice. Jesus tells us this in Matthew 16:24-25 when He says “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

I believe that if there was one reason why we are so devoid of personal relationships with Christ it is because we wont sacrifice. Beginning with our failure to sacrifice a small amount of time to spend with Him. I remember a few years ago when I had enlisted in the army and was going through basic training. We were woke up extremely early in the mornings and would train all day. When we finally got to turn in for the night we were exhausted and had just enough time to shower and maybe write a letter to home. It was during this time that I decided to spend some time just to read a chapter of the bible and pray for about ten minutes before I went to bed. After showering and maybe writing a letter, prayer and reading had to take place often after the lights were already off. And if you have never been in the military than let me just say that sleep was a precious commodity. But I gave some of it up just to draw close to God and it paid off. Despite sleep deprivation, physical pain and emotional and mental strain I knew that God was always present despite the circumstances and the fact that I couldn’t “feel” His Presence. It built up my faith and helped me get through the whole ordeal.

This is when I learned that we all have plenty of time to spend with the Holy Spirit. If I could find time in boot camp for God then we can find time in civilian life. So what is our problem? The culture we live in says we must be busy and productive and when we have free time we find ourselves spending it on our own entertainment or relaxation. I believe that rest is extremely important, even a command of the Lord but the way we are “resting” is not good. We drink, party, go to friends, play video games, watch television or get on social media. We fill our lives with distractions and feel bad about failing to spend time with the Lord. We fail to recognize that in the Presence we find rest and sustenance. These other things only satisfy temporarily and leave us empty. They simply distract us from our work obsessed culture and when it is time to return to work we are still reluctant to go back and our rest is immediately disturbed. If we could just be bold enough to sacrifice one thing to open up some time for the Lord in our schedules we would find Him and find the rest He has for us. We would discover that it wasn’t just His sacrifice that lead to intimacy but our own as well. God enjoys partnering with us and after all a relationship takes two people to work, not just one.

He opened the door, but the choice to walk through it is up to us. Developing a relationship with God is actually not as difficult as we think. In addition to tearing the veil, His death also took our sins away. With the penalty paid and our old self dying on the cross with Him, we are able to enter into relationship right now! He took care of everything else. We just have to make the choice and as He tells us in Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters , for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other”. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you an area in your life where you could surrender it to Him and in its place interact with Jesus. Sacrifice a distraction, give up an idol that is holding you hostage to religion without relationship and experience the blessing of knowing God personally.

Enoch’s Walk (Purpose of this Blog)

jpsetfreeLeave a comment

“By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God.” Hebrews 11:5

There’s not a whole lot that is said concerning Enoch in the scriptures. Yet what little is said I’ve always found interesting. A man seems to have accomplished the impossible, he has pleased God to such a degree that God takes him without him ever seeing death. Genesis 5:24 says “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.”. What exactly does it mean that he  “walked with God”? How does one go about it? Enoch lived in a time predating the Bible and even the Law. There was no Israel at this point in history either so clearly its not devoting more time to study, attending more church services, or performing works. To walk with God is to live your entire life with Him, to walk in a constant relationship with Christ. Its what Christ and the apostles refer to when they say “abide in Christ”. Its learning to live your life moment by moment in the Presence of God, lead by the Holy Spirit. Walking with God means that your ultimate goal in life is to get as close to your Lord and Savior as you possibly can. It means you’ve counted the cost and have determined that sacrificing everything is a small price to pay to obtain the riches found in God and the understanding of His nature and ways. It means you’ve made God your first love and the ultimate desire of your heart. Its behaving in a way that is in accord with Gods character and making decisions that will keep you close to Him and avoiding the wrong choices that you know are presented by the enemy in an attempt to draw you away. All because of your love for the Lord.

There is no shortage of blogs out there that talk about scripture and our Christian religion. My vision for this blog though is to get to the bottom of what it means and looks like to walk with God, to understand the walk of Enoch. To go deeper into the knowledge of our great God, to learn how to approach Him and to develop an ever deepening relationship with Him. My hope is that through this blog we might establish a firm foundation in our understanding of Gods nature and how to live a life in the Presence of God. Through His death Christ tore the veil so that we could draw close. We owe it to Him and to ourselves to do so. There is no greater blessing from God then to know Him.