Wrapping Up The Absence Thing (2)

Just a short follow up to the last post which looked at the concept of God being a “no show” at our corporate gatherings and is He really the one to blame for lack of “presence”.
I have to at least offer the last remaining paragraphs I stumbled across by Tozer on this subject.

“The notion that there is a God but that He is comfortably far away is not embodied in the doctrinal statement of any Christian church. Anyone who dared admit that he held such a creed would be considered a heretic and avoided by respectable religious people; but our actions, and especially our spontaneous utterance, reveal our true beliefs better than any conventional creed can do, and if we are to judge by these then I think it can hardly be denied that the average Christian thinks of God as being at a safe distance looking the other way.
One advantage gained from thinking of God as being absent is that we may assume that He is pleased with whatever we may be trying to do, as long as it’s not downright wicked. There would seem to be no other way to account for the vast amount of religious nonsense being carried on these days in the name of the Lord. Ambitious persons burned up with desire to promote the kingdom hatch religious schemes so moronic as to be altogether beyond credibility, and which would never be believed by serious minded persons if they were not put on display in every city, town and hamlet throughout the country.
Since Protestants have no pope to keep them in line and since God is too far away to be consulted, the only limit to our modern religious folly is the amount the people will stand; and present indications are they will stand plenty and pay for it too.“

Has God become nothing more than an icon in the church much like the Virgin Mary but without the plaster-of-paris or glow in the dark plastic? Has He been placed into a category with Elvis, (the dead Elvis) who “is” to the adoring follower whatever he or she wants Elvis to be? They don’t actually need Elvis to get along in life they only require the thought or memory of Elvis, the one that satisfies their spiritual and emotional needs. To be honest if Elvis were still alive I can’t see him trying to pull off the sequined, bellbottom, thirty pound sparkle cape look at seventy three expecting to maintain the god-like status he enjoys today.

I’ve always loved the conversation between the two thieves on the cross either side of Christ. One wanders down a path of revelation which leads to salvation, the other? Listen to the words of the one.
“Do you not fear God?”
“This man is innocent, he has done nothing to deserve this”.
“We are guilty and deserve everything we are about to get”.
“Jesus, remember me when you enter into your kingdom”.
Then Jesus:
“Surely this day, you will be with me in paradise”.

Simple and easy to remember. Have you ever noticed that once a person “gets saved” there’s a tendency to become arrogant and self righteous taking on the blood of Christ as some kind of award we’ve attained on our own and from there we can get along just fine without God? Do we tend to see Christ through the eyes of the thief on the other cross, seeing him as nothing more than the someone who might just be able to “get us off this damn cross” so we can get back to life as we know and want it? Most often people are invited to Jesus, not the Jesus on the cross oh no, they’re invited to the Jesus just before and just after the cross stuff. It doesn’t include this, “I’ve been crucified with Christ” stuff.
We’ve been saved by The entrance, The door, The gate, The Way, through which we have access and fellowship with God. There’s one, just One. There’s no other. The Presence of God hasn’t been provided any other way but by the blood and body of Christ sacrificed on the cross and demonstrated for us in this simple conversation between Jesus and a thief.

The Power of The Presence

“The world is evil, the times they are waxing late, and the glory of God has departed from the church as the fiery cloud once lifted from the door of the Temple in the sight of Ezekiel the prophet. The God of Abraham has withdrawn his conscious Presence from us, and another God whom our fathers knew not is making himself at home among us. This God we have made and because we have made him we can understand him; because we have created him he can never surprise us, nor astonish us, nor transcend us”
A.W. Tozer

I had a conversation yesterday with a lady my wife and I have known for well over twenty years, I was surprised to hear she was no longer attending the fellowship she had been attending for years. I asked her why she wasn’t there and she answered, “the Spirit wasn’t there”. She said it used to be but there came at time when God was no longer honored especially in the worship which had become nothing more than a “segment” facilitating the heavily managed program. (I’ve been to the same fellowship and would have to agree). This isn’t the first time I’ve heard someone make this comment and it’s caused me to once again consider the validity of such a statement. It’s interesting but the people I’ve heard make comments like this are very credible, honest, mature, solid, faithful people who aren’t prone to “weird spiritual assessments” (you know who the kind I’m talking about). So what about the teaching, the preaching, the words of scripture which tell us, “where two or more are gathered together there I am in their midsts”? Is it possible for the saints to gather together for a corporate experience yet be void of the spirit? Jesus was among the disciples, he even visited them after His resurrection but He said, “Wait to receive power from on high, the Father shall send the counselor” (the Spirit). The disciples were faithful in believing who Christ said he was but they still lacked power. Jesus healed people with demonstrations of power in the midst of faith but even he was unable to heal in certain areas because of the lack of faith, people failed to believe. Scripture even speaks of those who are religious, “They have a form of godliness but deny its power“. Can corporate gatherings become nothing more than events allowing us to “appear” spiritual because we attend church? Could it be that to “deny the power” is to lack the desire to have fellowship with God during these gatherings? Do we do what we want to do, get the things done we want to get done, preach the topics we want to preach? We “must” have the first and last word, sing songs that affirm and compliment the pastors sermon topic, songs declaring what we want and expect God to do for us and through us, and finish all within a time frame that accommodates our Sunday schedule. But how often during these gatherings do we take the time to include God, Jesus, the Spirit. Is there even the simple acknowledgment that He IS, that He’s present and that He presides over our gatherings? Do we notice Him beyond the informal and gratuitous prayers we informally toss out to cover the opening of “our time” together and the offering? “God, we thank you for this time this morning, bless this time together, in Jesus name, amen. Now if you’ll sit down right over there and let us do our thing!”

“There are over many who have much knowledge and little virtue, who often speak of God while rarely speaking to Him”, said Malaval.

“The bible teaches plainly enough the doctrine of the divine omnipresence, but for the masses of professed Christian this is the era of the Absentee God. Most Christians speak of God in the manner usually reserved for a departed loved one, rarely as of one present; but they do not often speak to Him”

The Spirit “came upon them”, it “rested upon them”. The Spirit searches our hearts, it knows our thoughts and the Spirit allows us to know the very heart of God. The Spirit is the point of contact for fellowship, the completion of God through Christ bringing the Father pleasure. Is it possible that if His people aren’t wanting to make a determined effort to truly have fellowship with Him that He would remove the conduit for fellowship, removing the flow of power leaving them with nothing more than a form of godliness void of the power? Or, is it even right to assume it’s God’s fault? I stumbled across a dusty copy of “God Tells The Man Who Cares” by A.W. Tozer and opened it to a marked page and read this:

“Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. Their fear and chagrin for the moment overcame their conscious need of God. Sin never feels comfortable in the divine presence. Jonah, in his determined refusal to obey God’s command, rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Peter, with a sudden acute consciousness of personal guilt, sought not to flee from the Lord’s presence but begged the Lord instead to depart from him. Men need God above everything else, yet are uncomfortable in His presence. This is the self-contradictory moral situation sin has brought into us”.

There were times in science class when we would study motion and depth perception, the teacher would set up different stations for us to observe and we were to make a determination on “which was closer?”, or “which object is moving away and which object is coming towards you?” It was amazing how often we were wrong in our assessments of what we “perceived” to be true based upon what we saw.

Could it be that THIS is what has truly taken place? We’re quick to put any “act of departure” on God when in fact it could be us like Adam who have sought to depart from God, keeping Holiness at a distance lest our sinful acts be susceptible to the searching of the Spirit all the while propping up (by our own efforts), a facade we’ve declare to be “the presence of God”. Based upon the statistical quandary of my previous post dealing with the moral condition of the evangelical church this would appear to be a viable conclusion to consider.

“A convinced atheist is more logical than a Christian who tries to worship an Absentee God. The atheist can ignore all moral and religious precepts without fear because he believes that there is not a God to call him to account.”

“If The Truth Be Told …..”

“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.“

“Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that cometh from the mouth of God.”

“For everything that exists is help together and has its being by the word of God.“

One thing I’m coming to understand to a greater degree over the last few years is the integrity of the spoken word, now I’m not referring to the “our words effect the spiritual realm” crap that leaves people captive to verbal gyrations akin to throwing salt over your shoulder or spitting on the floor to counter any slip of the tongue that might cause heaven to shift in the wrong direction, I’m referring to good old fashion, “let your yes be yes and your no be no“. If you say it, you mean it. If you’re not going to do it, don’t say it. All to often the promise, intention or commitment hold very little value.
I began a determined effort to hold to what I say or not say anything at all as far as “doing”, if there was little chance of being able to follow through on my word. An example of this is the new car my wife drives. I had said at one point that when I was done with a certain construction project we should look at getting her a new car, well the job finished and she started gathering brochures on various cars and finally test drove a new Toyota. I didn’t think we needed to spend that kind of money on a car and justified a legitimate “back out”. The next morning I found the brochure for the new car in the waste basket. That really said a lot to me, clearly demonstrating what my word was worth to my wife, So I called the dealer asked them to gas up the car, have the paper work ready and we drove over that night so my wife could get her new car. This is not the only instance where having to make my word good has cost me money and I now choose my words more carefully not for the sake of the money but for the sake of the making the word good. If this is my own little battle devised solely for the sake of me appearing righteous in my own eyes, then fine, but I don’t believe it is, I believe it’s based on the examples and teachings I see in scripture. I believe what God has said and continues to say and little else beyond that. It might seem like an extreme way to live but I’ve found it makes life more relaxed and objective. It allows for “progression” as it relates to the investment of MY time and effort, limiting the risk of wasting it on so much “talk”, it also reduces frustration and getting pissed at people who tend to be chronic in this area.
This whole thing started or “clicked” when I was reading through scripture and was finally struck by the emphasis placed on the word “word”, how it was used in so many areas to reference things such as, God, Christ, The Word that made everything that is, and how the things that have been made are “sustained”, covenants, promises, “man does not live by bread alone”, “You alone have the words of eternal life”, that word.
This word is presented as entity, life, power, all that is eternal, and provision (just to name a few). The word as it relates to God can never be separate from creation as we know it and nor heaven which is yet unseen. Everything that is, everything that has ever been or ever will be finds it’s foundation, revelation, being, breath, and source, from the words which have as their only source …. God. Should we not then, find it very reassuring that God’s words about Himself are eternally true? Words like, “I am the Lord God, I changeth not”. If God were to change would not also his thoughts? Would not His words be susceptible to alteration as well? And if this were true then is it possible that “things” as we know them could also change? Could we not be witness planets taking different paths, water would cease to be wet or air would cease to “be” for lack of a testimony to make it so? The testimony of God? Everything that is has the word of God to validate its very existence. Could the sun go dark yet still be the sun? Would our bones stop supporting? This is not to say that God couldn’t make things instantly different than they are, he surely can, but because His word is true and that He will always cause it to remain true by His very nature and faithfulness, we find comfort and hope. We are truly the beneficiaries of the unchanging true word of such a God.

With all this being true is it then safe to say that we, who have taken on the very life of Christ, born again, adopted as sons and daughters into the inheritance, character and nature of God, in-dwelt with the Spirit which operates under the guidance and directive of these very same words, should speak words that give a consistent witness to such Glory? I say this based upon a statistic that stands as a condemning witness before the church. In a recent survey this conclusion comes forth: Divorce rates among conservative Christians were significantly higher than for other faith groups, and much higher than Atheists and Agnostics experience. Donald Hughes said: “In the churches, people have a superstitious view that Christianity will keep them from divorce, but they are subject to the same problems as everyone else, and they include a lack of relationship skills …. Just being born again is not a rabbit’s foot.” Hughes claims that 90% of divorces among born-again couples occur after they have been saved.” “We rarely find substantial differences between the moral behavior of Christians and non-Christians.“
We boast having the best preachers in our pulpits, the best teachers in our Christian colleges, and invite only the most “gifted and anointed” spiritual leaders to speak at our conferences and I have to ask, “what isn’t being taught? What isn’t being addressed? What isn’t being preached or presented as a life changing revelation from heaven that those who sit before them Sunday after Sunday can lay hold of? Why is THIS the “fruit” facing the Christian leaders of our day? Aside from the gospel, I would dare say there is no more important area of understanding which needs to be laid hold of among the church today than that of valid testimony.