Do You Have God's Presence in Your Life?

Have you ever come to a place and time in your life where you longed for God's presence but somehow his presence remains to be a mental memory instead of an experiential reality? You go to church but church becomes a burden.  You want to fast and pray but at the end of your fasting and prayer, all you get is a sense of burden and confusion.  You try to share the gospel but there is no zeal.  You preach your sermons but they are no longer touching the lives of those who come to listen.  You want to be a good person, a loving person, but time and again you end of hurting the very people who love you. Your family, friendships, and fellowship with others continue to suffer.  It has been so long that you really remember God answering your prayers.  You experience this dryness but somehow fail to put your finger on the real cause of this dryness.  Even when you do your personal devotion, there is no refreshing from the Lord.  

Or, have you considered the life and ministry of others who were once full of God's presence and their ministry touched the lives of countless people? You loved their sermons; you wanted to be in the company of their group, you wanted to read their books and travel to attend their seminars and conferences. You wanted them to lay their hands on you and pray a prayer of blessing upon you.  They were your spiritual heroes.  But lately, their sermons become dry, their tone is filled with self-righteousness, there is no moister in the air when they preach, there is no sense of God's presence in their seminars and conferences.  All they talk about is what and how much they have achieved and done in this world.  As they minister, preach and teach, you can see the artistic refinement instead of spiritual unction and personal touch; their interest has shifted from helping people to helping themselves.  You go home after seeing, meeting and attending their services and wonder "what is missing?"  

Probably, the biggest thing missing from your life or from the lives of those ministers you respected might be the very presence of God. The writer of Hebrews in 12:14-17 and 13:1-5 gives us three primary reasons why someone loses God's presence:  The passage makes it explicitly clear that without holiness no one can see God.  The three things he lists appear to be the most destructive in causing the loss of holiness in one's life and ministry.

1.  Root of Bitterness:  The writer says "make every effort to live in peace with all men".  However, there are times when we really want to live in peace with all men but others don't want to live in peace with us.  They take advantage of our sincere desire to live in peace.  They take advantage of our sincere desire for friendship.  They purposely deceive us and harm us.  They become jealous of our success and devise plans to pull us down. They break promises and betray us and in return accuse us of doing that.  We become the innocent victims of their wickedness.  When such things happen to us, we start developing a sense of victimization.  The pain becomes so unbearable that we start harboring a desire to take revenge.  But because they are so strong and cleaver, neither fearing man or God, they use corrupt means to justify themselves in the eyes of all men and heave more abuse upon us.  We feel helpless and powerless to defend ourselves; and it is when bitterness begins to take root in us.  Once this root of bitterness finds fertile soil of vindictiveness in our hearts, soon it defiles everything and we lose the holiness that God demanded from us.  Once we lose the holiness of loving each other and are filled with bitterness; it soon becomes hate. When our hearts are filled with bitterness and hate, we start walking in darkness.  When we walk in darkness, we lose fellowship with one another and also with God.  The Holy Spirit no longer finds place in our hearts and our personal life and ministry suffer.  We long for God's presence but he is nowhere to be found.

2.  Sexual Immorality: The writer of Hebrews compares sexual desire with Esau's hunger.  A sexually immoral person is like Esau who forfeited his birthright for a bowl of soup because he could not control his natural hunger.  Similarly, sexual desire is a natural desire and God has ordained ways to satisfy it.  In 13:4, the writer says "marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure".  This is not a premarital counseling (it should apply to that) in which the bride and groom should keep pure until marriage; it is after marriage that the marriage bed must be kept pure and there should be no adultery.  Rebellion and unfaithfulness to God in the Bible is always compared with sexual immorality and marital unfaithfulness.  It is a sin primarily done against oneself.  Paul says "there should be no hint of sexual immorality among you" because once there is sexual immorality in one's life, there cannot be God's presence there.  Just like the root of bitterness, sexual sins defile us completely and God's presence cannot be there.  Loss of wisdom and purpose are some of the early signs of this sin in one's life.  Esau wept bitterly for his birthright, but he could not get back what he had lost in the heat of his passion of satisfying his natural hunger pangs; and the same thing can happen to those who commit sexual sin; they may shed tears of sorrow and repentance but the damage and loss might not be repaired for the rest of their life.  Therefore, we must keep watch over our souls so that we do not come to a place like Esau's in shedding our tears for the loss of God's blessing and presence from our lives and ministries.  

3.  Love of Money: Heb. 13:5 says "keep your lives free from the love of money" and Paul says "love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Tim. 6:10). Money is needed to meet the needs in our lives but the danger to fall in love with the money is as great as falling in sexual sin or the sins of bitterness. When we love money, we start using godliness as a means of financial gain, we start impressing people, we start exaggerating and fabricating things we do for the kingdom of God.  We start whitewashing the truth and build our lives and ministries on lies and deception.  God is holy and there is no way we can go on fooling God and soon, our lives start to manifest human pride, arrogance and self-promotion to keep people and money coming toward us.  But, inwardly, a sense of emptiness begins to grow, our taste buds begin to change, our relationships begin to suffer.  When we love money so much, it is possible to gain it.  But sadly, either it departs from us soon or even if it remains, it does not satisfy our inner longings.  As Christians, we are made to enjoy God's presence in secret places but for those who love money, they become empty in the inside but pretend to be full in the outside and that is why you see no presence of God either in their personal lives or in their public ministries.

So, if you have lost holiness in your life through bitterness, sexual sin or love of money; apart from resisting the sin at the point of shedding of blood (Heb. 12:4), there is no easy way of regaining the lost presence of God.  If it was in the Old Testament, there would be no hope.  But the writer of Hebrews says that we have come to a new mountain, the Jesus who is the mediator of new covenant and therefore, under the foot of the cross, there is hope for us.  But whether you can continue to be effective and fruitful as you were or could have been before you committed those sins is still doubtful; it will depend on the kind of repentance you have.  Justifying your sins is a sure of way loosing God's presence forever.

Those of you who have been able to live in love instead of bitterness, in sexual purity instead of sexual immorality, in self-sacrifice instead of loving money; the warnings remain as fresh as ever because your present spiritual status is not a guarantee that you will not fall in any of these dangers. 

Therefore, let us continue to forgive those who hurt us.  Let us keep our marriage bed pure.  Let us love God instead of loving money.  Once we maintain holiness in these areas of our lives, we will continue to enjoy God's presence in our private lives and also be channels of God's blessings to those we minister through our public lives.