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 The God of Abraham has withdrawn his conscious Presence from us, and another God whom our fathers knew not is making himself at home among us.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.”