Practising the Presence of God.

“For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’” These are the words of the apostle Paul in Athens in the meeting of the Areopagus. He was trying to make the point that God is not far from us, as some would like to think, but that we actually exist in His presence. Why is it that some are not aware of this, as were the people of Paul’s day? Look at a passage in Romans 1 that says: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

It is by our own free choice and the suppression of the knowledge of God, that we are unaware of the presence of God around us. God has made Himself fully known and we can be aware of His presence, but we must acknowledge His existence first before we can experience Him. God has given us all free will, but we must choose to live in His presence now, if we want to live with Him in eternity! To say that God cannot be known puts you in the same category as the people of Athens in Paul’s day who had built an alter with the inscription “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD” (Acts 17:23). Paul was declaring to these people that God can be known, and he still declares to us today that we can know God.

It is through faith in the person of Jesus Christ that we know God and are found by Him. When we understand who Jesus is, we can not only live with that assurance, but we can live with a real sense of God’s presence in our lives. God is not hiding from us and it is we who are hiding from Him. When we acknowledge that God exists, and that He has sent His Son to die for us, we become aware of the Lord in our lives. God becomes a real help and a real presence when we stop suppressing His existence. Our faith becomes practise for eternity, and we can actually experience God’s presence while we are still alive, of course to lesser degrees, but still His presence is real and we can experience Him through our faith! When we sin, we need to repent, God doesn’t leave us, and by practicing His presence we can become more aware of His Holiness and Majesty.

This world would become a more enjoyable place to live in, if more people were aware of God’s presence! There would be less sin, less suffering, and more holiness in the mist of a world in great pain. This is Mike.

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