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Seeing God’s Presence

USC Women's Ministries

 

 

“Seeing God’s Presence”

As you may know, I love the Lectio 365 prayer model and I use it each morning with my own personal prayer time. Those of you who also use the app know that the first thing they tell you to do is to pause, breathe, and be still, and focus my thoughts on the presence of God. So, I close my eyes and I try to envision what the presence of God looks like.

I am a very visual person. I see color with everything. Even when I listen to music, I visualize and see colors and other images. So when I turn my focus to God’s presence, I immediately visualize what I think His presence looks like.

But I find it difficult to do this. I have no clear “picture” of what I see. I can only visualize what I know about God. If I were to journal what I know about God’s presence from His Word here is some of what I have learned (not an exhaustive list):

God is omnipresent – meaning He is everywhere at all times and He is here, or “everywhere present”.

David writes in Psalm 139:7-10:
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

God is eternal – His presence is eternal. Scripture begins with God’s presence in Genesis at creation and ends in Revelation in the New Heaven and the new Earth where all of God’s people will be in His presence for eternity.

God is Spirit – we see this from Jesus’ words in John 4:23-24 to the Samaritan woman at the well:
23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – Three in One. We see this in Matthew 3 when Jesus the Son is baptized, the Spirit of God descends like a dove, and the voice of God the Father speaks from heaven. Also in Matthew 28:19 Jesus instructs his disciples to baptize people “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”.

God is perfect and without sin. This is important because sin hinders my experience of God’s presence. While I know that God is everywhere present, I can choose to not invite Him in. When I sin, I move away from God and choose to replace His presence with my own desires.

God is loving and forgiving. His presence is redemptive through His Son, Jesus. Because of His immeasurable grace, God wrote Himself – His presence – into the story to bring salvation to us through Jesus – Immanuel, God with us.

Throughout the Old Testament we see God revealing Himself in different ways:

    • Adam & Eve in the Garden
    • Abraham when He established His covenant
    • Hagar in the wilderness – El Roi – the God who sees
    • Several times to Moses: at the burning bush and on Mt. Sinai
    • a pillar of cloud and of fire to the Israelites during the Exodus;
    • A cloud in the tent of meeting or tabernacle and in the temple in the Holy of Holies
    • Samuel at Shilo
    • Shadrack Meshack & Abednego – fiery furnace
    • Isaiah and Ezekiel and many of the prophets had visions
    • Elijah at the cave in Mt. Horeb – God’s presence was a whisper.

In the New Testament, of course God’s presence is in the incarnation of Jesus. Immanuel, God with us.

    • In Jesus’ life, God dwelled within Jesus. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. The word “dwelling” here is the same word as “tabernacle”. Jesus is the living, breathing tabernacle of God to reveal God’s glory and grace so that His people may experience His presence.
      • John 15:4 – Jesus says remain in me and I will remain in you.
      • Matthew 28:20 – And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
      • Jesus promises the Holy Spirit in John 14:16-17 –
        I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you— the Spirit of truth…he lives with you and will be in you.
    • In Jesus’ death – we receive salvation and direct access to God’s presence. When Jesus died, in the temple, the veil which separated people from God’s Holy presence was torn, signifying that we now have access into God’s presence – into the Holy of Holies through the torn body and blood of Jesus.
      • Matthew 27: 50-51 – Then Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit. At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
    • Finally, in Jesus’ resurrection we have, not only access to God’s presence but the promise and hope of being in His presence for all eternity.

That is a lot. And it does give me many different visual ideas for what God’s presence could look like. And I’ve come to conclusion that God’s presence is very personal – just like the whisper to Elijah on the mountain.

The other wonderful thing in all of this is that because of salvation through Jesus…if you have accepted Jesus as your Savior, inviting Him into your heart…God’s presence dwells within us! His Spirit lives in us. We are the living, breathing, walking, talking tabernacle or temple of His presence!

So what can we learn from all of this?

Take time to pause and be still in God’s presence. Listen for the whisper of His voice. Surrender your thoughts to the Holy Spirit and just be still.

Enter into God’s presence through Jesus – Immanuel, God with us – by daily meeting with Him and taking up our cross and choosing to follow Him and not our own desires.

Live out the presence of God. Is God’s presence evident in your life? In the way you love others; in the way you do your work; in the way you speak; And are you inviting others to experience God’s presence in their lives through knowing Jesus as their Savior?

Heather Hanton
Ministries and Media Specialist
The Salvation Army USA Central Territory
Women’s Ministries Department

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