Feeling the Presence of God

Acts 17:28, “for in Him we live and move and exist…”

I have often described the presence of God as a feeling, and even used the phrase “I felt the presence of God” as if somehow there was some physical stirring or emotional high that was in fact God’s presence. But this really is a grossly inadequate representation of what really is the awareness of the presence of God.

We do not “feel” God presence. Sometimes there are feelings in response to our awareness of His presence. For example in the presence of God you might feel conviction. Whereas the emotional response of guilty feelings to someone’s condemnation would not be associated with the awareness of God in that “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.” (Rom 8:1)

Some feel euphoria and equate that with God’s presence, but the two are completely unrelated. New lovers feel the hormonal euphoria of being in love. Addicts feel the euphoria of feeding their addictions. Very few would argue drugs and alcohol create a euphoria associated with the presence of God, but there are plenty of people addicted to the endorphin released by spending, and doing it in the name of God, and then attributing the following endorphin rush to the presence of God.

In fact “feeling” anything can be a very dangerous thing, particularly following those feelings. Happiness is about happenstance whereas Joy if a fruit of the spirit. Happiness is dependent upon circumstance and outcome whereas Joy is only dependent upon God.

If we look at Christ we find that He did actually follow the emotion of compassion, but that is really the only example I could find of our Savior following emotion. In every other case He went opposite to the emotion. The emotions caused by hunger were ignored. The opportunities to yield to the euphoric high when stroking one’s own ego in pride were never followed. The emotions and stress of not wanting to go to the cross were crucified with Him actually going willfully. Christ example was just because something feels good does not mean God is in it.

Driving this point home for me this morning my friend Jim sent me an excerpt from Bernhard Dohrmann’s “Let them be Runners!” In it Bernahard says, “When your feelings rule you line of sight, you become truly blind.”

The presence of God is not in feelings. Obedience to God is not dictated by feelings. Our salvation is not a function of feelings. Feelings are chemical reactions in the least spiritual of things… our flesh. Joy is a spiritual reaction to the presence of God. Peace is a spiritual reaction to the presence of God. And the presence of God is a spiritual awareness, not a feeling.

This past Sunday worship in church for me was prime example of awareness of His presence. The music is normally very good where I attend but last Sunday the mix was horrible. Normally this would distract me, but as  worship went on I became acutely aware of His presence. Nothing emotional about it, just simply connecting and allowing my spirit to be aware. After all His word does say that when two or more are gathered in His name than He is in their midst.

And for many that will read this blog you understand this “feeling”, this awareness of God in worship. But what I am here to tell you is that He is ALWAYS there in that situation. If you or I do not “feel” Him, if we are not AWARE, then it is our issue and not His.

Furthermore that presence is ALWAYS there inside us. Oh sure often life will pull us into 100% flesh awareness, but His presence is always in us waiting for us to reconnect and become aware. After all, the same Savior who promised His presence in gathering together also spoke this in John 14:19-20, “After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.”

What does the presence of God feel like? I have no idea. But I can tell you what it looks like. And I can also tell you that if you have given your life to Christ, then that presence is in you, and He is in you, just as He promised. It is up to you to be aware and to practice His presence. 

Growing = Knowing

2 Peter 1:8, “For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

First and foremost, all the qualities Peter describes in the first chapter of his second letter are there so that we can have a fruitful relationship – not with one another, though this is a consequence, but with Christ Himself. Faith, moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love are all there in support of us individually having a subjective relationship to the Son of God.

I discussed in “Growing – Knowledge” that are objective knowledge supplies the ultimate subjective knowledge. We learn about Christ before we learn Christ via a continuous awareness of Him and His presence.

Think of this in context of Matthew 7:22-23. Here Jesus is talking of Himself judging the world. He says, “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, I never knew you…” Again looking at the original Greek we see the “knew” is an intimate knowledge.

So many religions and doctrines try to impose on their followers this idea of performance as necessary for entering heaven. Impossible standards of “holiness” and sin free living are raised only to have a people pretend in public to be something they are not. Jesus is saying here, if you want to get to heaven… then We need to get to know each other. The godly living follows the encounter, it does not precede it.

We start down a trial of clues leading us to Christ. And when we truly encounter Him then we see what the real standard is. It is the interaction with the Real Thing that shines on the errors of our ways and causes the conforming of our character to the image of Christ.

We will not be judged on church attendance, the number of mission trips we make, or the amount of hours we spend volunteering. Our eternal fate will not be based on dollars given or the number of prayers prayed. Our eternal fate lies in did we know Jesus.  Yes knowing Him will lead to church, volunteering, praying, and giving… but that is the cart and Jesus is the horse.

Let the cry of your heart be to know Christ. Let your prayers be to truly know Him. Allow Christ’s words in John 10:27 to come alive in you where He says, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me…” 

Growing - Love

2 Peter 1:7, “… and in your brotherly kindness (supply), love.”

As I reach the end of this series on growing I can’t help but think that love, as a Christ like quality possessed by the believer is the end all be all. After all the apostle Paul did write in 1 Corinthians 13:13, “But now faith, hope, love, abide in these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

Jesus Himself summarized every commandment into two when He said, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”

But do we as a human race even begin to understand what it is to love? Does actually being a Christian create love? “As I have loved you” Jesus said. How did Christ love people? On one day He feed thousands and then the very next day sent them away. In one sentence He calls Peter a rock, and in the very next sentence says to him, “get behind me Satan.” The gospels teach us that Jesus loved Lazarus so He did not go to him when he was sick but waited and Lazarus died. The Bible teaches us that God is love, and that He loves the world and yet Jesus turned over tables at the temple, and more than once called Pharisees names. And every bit of it was love.

Would we define love on those terms? How about the love in the parable of the prodigal son. The Father in the story is God. The 2 sons are us. God love let one go, and allowed another to stay. God’s love rejoiced over the return of the “sinner”, the prodigal… and almost scolds the faithful son for his jealousy.

John 15:13 records Jesus saying, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” Do we love like this? Do we really love the sinner and hate the sin as some have so craftily said? Would you lay your life down for your spouse or children? Many would say of course. But as a reminder of how far you are from the love that brotherly kindness and faith, and moral excellence, and self-control, and perseverance, and godliness supply I would ask this. Would you lay down your life for a person of another race, for a homosexual, for a murderer even? Would you die for the murderer of one of your children just so they could have an opportunity to make heaven? That is love, and that is exactly what Christ, and Christ alone did.

Love is not a destination. If pure perfect love were possible outside of Christ’s example then we should expect all the other gifts of the spirit to cease as 1 Corinthians 13:10 says. Think about that. Do you prophecy? Then perfect love has not come to you. Do you speak in tongues? Then the perfect has not come. Get it?

Love is a quality, like the others of the first Chapter of 2 Peter that grows as its base grows. It takes godliness – that transfer into kingdom awareness and mindedness to truly love. It takes having been kind to the deserving to see the unlovebale as deserving of love too. And it takes relationship with God to see when a rebuke is as much love to one as a meal is to another.

Love is not advice. Love is not worry. Love is not a feeling. It is not the hormonal high of people desiring one another. Love is patient, kind, not jealous, not arrogant, not unbecoming. Love never desires something for itself, it is never provoked, and always forgiving. Love never rejoices at suffering or unrighteousness, but only rejoices in the truth. As Paul tells us “love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

An impossible standard demonstrated by Christ. That’s love, and it is yours and increasing for a purpose. Not to be the end all be all. Love is just one of the qualities that we must have so that we can know our Lord Jesus Christ. “True Knowledge” Peter says.

I will close with something from my dear friend Jim Spivey this morning. He’s my love coach for those of you who don’t know him. He said, “You can only truly give that which can be fully received.  True love both requires and creates perfect reciprocity, unity, and wholeness.  It always operates in completeness, never aiming to create what already exists in full.  'Attempts to love' reveals itself in its unreceivability, because it is built on a lie that insists that something is missing.  Completion and perfect love come in 'seeing' wholeness anew, not in finding and fitting in the missing pieces.  Remember, the only real and true peace and joy is buried, hidden, right ‘in the eye’ of the hurricane, not to be found outside of it, by trying to steer clear of it.”

Growing – Brotherly Kindness

2 Peter 1:7, “and in your godliness, brotherly kindness…”

I would like to believe that most of society understands the concept of brotherly kindness. Surely we all know how to do good for someone close to us. In the absence of social dysfunction we normally would do good or act kindly to a brother or sister or mother or friend or co-worker. Jesus acknowledges this ability to do good in Matt 7:11 when He said, “if you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father…”

And yet as much as we know, almost instinctively, about doing good, about being kind to those who are close to us and perhaps even deserving, the brotherly kindness that is a quality of Christ, and that is supplied by faith, moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, and godliness is more than this earth bound kindness.

Sure we can copy, emulate, even create acts of kindness from our own will but there is a deeper brotherly kindness that originates from heaven. It is perfect kindness in accordance with what God deems as kindness. This is not to say stop being kind just because you are uncertain if it is God’s perfect will, but it is to say look deeper.

Christ is our example, and what were some of His acts of kindness? We certainly know that He and His disciples gave money to the poor. (Matt 26) We know that He feed the multitudes at least twice when they were hungry albeit miraculously. We know that He was often moved with compassion and healed the sick. All these things can certainly be considered kindness. Now perhaps you do not have the faith to raise the dead, but we all certainly have the words to pray for those who have needs beyond our abilities. And there are certainly plenty in need of some form of kindness that is well within our ability at the time.

In the end our acts of kindness, inspired or not by the Holy Spirit, are all considered by God as done unto Him. In the end increasing in the Christ-like quality of brotherly kindness increases us in the ultimate goal of knowing Him subjectively. In Matt 25:35-40, “For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me. Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see you sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ The King will answer and say to them, Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.”

And so with this perfect example of brotherly kindness I can’t help but notice what brotherly kindness is not. Brotherly kindness is not advice. Brotherly kindness is not saying be warm and filled when you could afford giving a blanket and a meal. It is not saying, if you will (fill in the blank) you would not be hungry or sick or poor.

Can anyone tell me of a single time when Jesus gave someone advice. To the rich young ruler looking for advice on how to get to heaven He said, “follow Me.” To the woman at the well who wondered aloud where to get living water He said, “I am the Living Water.” Follow Me… that is always Christ’ advice. And if we will follow Him we will come headlong into brother kindness and brotherly kindness will increase until it can support love. If we follow Him we will one day not follow just a trail of tracks, but we will come upon Him where He will invite us to walk with Him but along that trail of Jesus footsteps there will be people (or Christ disguised as people) who are in need of a little kindness. Stop to express it, and see what follows. 

Growing - godliness

2 Peter 1:6, “…and in your perseverance, godliness,”

Here Peter tells us that if we have increasing faith, moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, and perseverance that we will be godly. All are prerequisites for what Strong’s concordance says is reverence, respect, piety towards God. But please note this is not an act of piety, or pretending to be pious. This is learned respect from interaction with the Father.

Think on perseverance again for a moment. Self-control is a big supplier of the perseverance, but so is surrender or dying to oneself. To truly persevere as Christ persevered we have to have confronted and destroyed false doctrines. We have to have come to the place where we have a deep understanding of our own weakness, and in this understanding developed a reliance on God.

One of the best depictions in the bible of a man coming to godliness following perseverance is Job in Job 42:5-6. Job lost everything. His friends had advice. He had doctrines he relied on. He had piety that he relied on, but in verse 5 & 6 is the moment Job stops relying on everything but God. He said, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eyes sees You; Therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes.” Perseverance is the place of opportunity to see God with our spiritual eyes, and perhaps even in person. It is this place of seeing God in His full glory, and where we are humbly in respect of Him. This respect for God at or near the end of perseverance's increase is the beginnings of what will be a growing godliness.

Imagine a multileveled department store. Back in the day the elevators had an attendant. They would announce what the floor contained as you arrived at it.

“Second floor… men’s wear.”

“Third floor… lingerie.”

Fifth floor… welcome to godliness. Here we have new vision and the kingdom of God.

Godliness is where I believe kingdom eyes are opened. We have learned at this point that it is not about our anxiety, our troubles, our complications or difficulties. No, godliness is an act of the heart and character of the soul that truly acknowledges and understands that EVERYTHING is His and about Him. Godliness is Christ having the rightful place in our heart. It means that I am seeking to be Christ-like.

T Austin-Sparks wrote, “His righteousness, His character, His likeness, what He is in Himself: make it your business to bring that in first.” Allow godliness to grow in the character of your soul and then you will “find the Lord right there in all His sovereign rule on your behalf.”

All godliness to grow and watch the brotherly kindness it supports. 

Growing – Perseverance

2 Peter 1:6, “… and in your self control, perseverance…”

With the foundation of faith laid in believing Jesus as the Son of God and faith in the Father that He is love and causes all things to work together for good for those who love him the qualities of Christian character begin to build within our soul Faith as the foundation holding up moral excellence as a first floor, supporting objective knowledge as a second floor, supporting the third floor of self control, leading to this discussion of the fourth floor of perseverance.

The floors of a building analogy is intentional because without a sufficiently developed previous floor(s), the current floor cannot grow. And so we as Christians find Christ and His salvation leading to a relationship that is distant and objective at first. Stumbling into the need for self-control crisis sweeps us off our character back to the foundation of Christ. And yet somehow as these building blocks of Christ like Character are laid upon one another Perseverance emerges as a new level.

Perseverance is by definition the “persistence in a course of action.” It is the persistence in self-control. A person quitting the use of tobacco is not persevering on day one, or two, or three… that person is in an epic battle of self-control. But as those daily, even hourly battles are won then perseverance emerges. Perseverance being persistence, or continuing, in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.

So perseverance is the trait where self-control is second nature. It is the place that the soul, almost unconsciously chooses the spirit over selfish desires. It is the place where the Christian’s character is unwavering in an act of self-control regardless of the physical, psychological, or emotional pain associated with the obedience. Think of Jesus… He endured (persevered) the cross.

Oswald Chambers wrote this concerning perseverance. "God does not give us overcoming life; (perseverance) He gives us life as we overcome. The strain is the strength. If there is no strain, there is no strength... if you spend yourself out physically, you become exhausted, but spend yourself spiritually, and you get more strength. God never gives strength for tomorrow, or the next hour, but only for the strain of the minute... The saint is hilarious when he is crushed with difficulties because the thing is so ludicrously impossible to anyone but God."

And so this character of perseverance, of trusting God implicitly in some singular area of repetitions self-control can manifest in a multitude of ways. It could be the end of major battles in fighting addictions. Perseverance could be ignoring financial discomfort for the sake of obedience to God. It could be fighting fear to find Christ peace in the midst of a health crisis. Whatever it’s form, perseverance in the end of what Christ is, and showed us with His life. Perseverance is reaching the top of the stairs, where each step of self-control looks just like the previous step... but there is an end. Perseverance is seeing the hilarity of the difficulties.

Equally important is that perseverance is a necessary building block of godliness.

Growing – Self Control Part II

2 Peter 1:6, “And in your knowledge, self-control…”

I was ready to move on to the next Christian quality that is expected to grow within our soul when I realized that my explanation of self-control in the previous post was grossly over summarized. In essence I argued that self-control is the act of obeying spirit over flesh. This remains true, but what needs the expanding are the examples. Self-control is more than sin avoidance.

Self-control comes in a multitude of forms. I am forty-seven years old and God is still; and more than ever, demanding of me financial self-control in a society that creates every opportunity to not have self-control. When is the last time you went to any kind of retail store where they didn’t offer you a in store credit card?

For some reason there is a group of Christians out there who believe that they (me) can go an borrow all they want, providing temporary pleasure or convenience, and God will bless them later and pay the debt.

If that sounds insane it is, but it is something I believed for the longest time under the guise of the prosperity message. I believed that loans in all there forms were there by God to enable me to be blessed or meet an immediate need. Wrong!!!! Just this morning as I was conversing with God in my prayers I heard in my spirit, “I have NEVER told you to borrow money.” And I replied, what about my mortgage? To that I heard, “I have NEVER told you to borrow money.” In fact scripture says the same thing. Proverbs 22:7, “… the borrower becomes the lender’s slave.” And as I think about the choices I have made over the years to spend windfall on new things rather than paying off old, to appease my pleasures and lusts instead of savings are all reason enough I have a mortgage, a car note, credit card payments and more. In the past I have not exercised self-control and today I am a slave, being slowly freed from the lender.

Do you realize that the average American spend more than half their income paying debts? This is insanity and a prime example of the need for self-control.

But what is at the root? Is it the availability? Is it societal pressure? Where is the defect, why do we as a society borrower to have extra today?

In so many ways purchasing is emotional. For some buying things strokes their ego in that they think someone cares, or it make them “look” better. Others get an endorphin rush from the purchase. For those who need a purchase to release the endorphins, may I recommend Prozac. We must exercise self-control over our emotions. Most emotions are contained in the flesh and therefore must be controlled. Think about it.

The “emotions” of the Spirit are peace, patience, understanding, joy, compassion, mercy, and more I am sure. The emotions of the flesh are pitty instead of mercy, euphoria instead of joy, arrogance and self-reliance instead of peace.

This is not to say that obedience to God is not followed by some wonderful emotions. Nor is this to say that obedience to God can’t be inspired by a surge in faith, but let’s be clear. Emotions need to follow, not lead. We are to be lead by the Holy Spirit. And as a result emotions need a degree of self-control applied to them.

Lastly look at the life of Christ. He was never lead my emotion and even though He loved Lazarus He waiting 3 days before going to him when he became sick and died. Christ never borrowed a dime. Penniless He and his disciples did not negotiate to pay later the toll tax to enter a city. No, on the contrary God provided IN ADVANCE the gold coin from a fish’s mouth.

Lately I have had the occasional windfall. Each time I am presented with the choice. Do I go and get something I have been wanting, or in my mind need; or do I pay an existing debt. Each and every time this has been a development of my self-control.

I will close with this. Matthew 25:29, “For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have (who squandered, wasted, borrowered), even what he does have (the car on a note, the junk on a cr card) shall be taken away. 

Growing – Self Control

2 Peter 1:6, “And in your knowledge, self-control…”

With an ever expanding foundation of faith, layered with growing moral excellence, both supporting knowledge we come to the next layer of spiritual quality. That layer is self-control.

The Christian arriving at the place where the Holy Spirit is working on self-control for the first time has experience a revelation of the person of Christ and His role as King and Master. He/she has felt the love of God as Moral Excellence is created in the soul. Driven internally, the same Christian seeks knowledge, and in learning Christ objectively the attempt to emulate actions is imminent. Perhaps that objective knowledge leads to the Ten Commandments. Love God, don’t lust, don’t steal, don’t envy, etc. and yet time and time again we as Christians fail in one or  even all of the commandments. Jesus in Matthew 5:22 says that if we are angry with a brother, or call them fools or good for nothings then we are guilty. And so the utopia of early Christianity comes head long into the reality of life.

The Bible says this, but I do that. God didn’t you cure me of all this when you saved me? Aren’t I supposed to me miraculously different and holy after salvation? Shouldn't God have changed me, and if I am not changed does it mean that I am not saved? And so life as a Christian looks largely the same as a non-Christian. This is because we have a part in “working out our salvation.” We must willingly participate in our character transformation. A transformation that is the qualities of this chapter of 2 Peter becoming and increasing within the character of our soul.

Coming to self-control for the first time is to reach the epiphany that I actually have to make a decision for God and not fall to the greedy, self-willed, lazy, conniving self. Anger does not disappear except when applied with a healthy dose of self-control. Addictions, back biting, lying, stealing, and all the other sins do not miraculously disappear from our character, but rather God does require self-control. We must surrender to the Spirit of God and overcome the flesh with self-control.

But as important as self-control is; it is equally important what it is not. Self-control is not control of others. We, individually, in relationship to Christ work out our own, and only our own salvation. This is not to say that ministry and Ministers do not have a role. This is to say keep your judgments, doctrines, and rules to yourself. No matter how much knowledge you have, no matter how much self-control you exercise, you have not been put on earth to be Christ’s replacement on earth. If you want to lead then lead by example. And if you want to be like Christ then we will eventually find out that Christ is love and only love.

Lastly, if you fail in the area of self-control allow that crisis to return you to the foundation of faith. When there is sufficient faith, sufficient virtuous thought, sufficient knowledge, then sufficient self-control will be supplied to overcome. And you will pass into the next quality improvement stage as self-control will supply perseverance.