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TITLE: His Presence Is Present By Jennifer Nolan 02/12/09 |
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If I climb to the sky, you're there! If I go underground, you're there!
If I flew on morning's wings to the far western horizon, You'd find me in a minute - you're already there waiting! Then I said to myself, "Oh, he even sees me in the dark! At night I'm immersed in the light!"
It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you; night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you. Psalm 139:7-12 MSG
And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “…and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18, 20 NKJV
As a kid, I sometimes thought that my parents were somehow everywhere at once, or they had spies everywhere, or something. How else to explain how they always knew what I had been up to? In fact, my mother nearly had me convinced that she had eyes in the back of her head.
As I got older, I came to realize that when my parents knew that I had been up to “no good,” it wasn’t always because they had actually seen me. More often than not, it was simply because they knew me so well that they could detect the slightest change in my attitude, posture, voice, eye contact (usually the lack thereof), which indicated that I had done something I knew was wrong and that my conscience was giving me away. I was avoiding the inevitable – engaging in a futile attempt to avoid facing their wrath by not readily admitting what I had done, as if I could erase history by just keeping quiet. It never worked.
While my parents never were everywhere, and while it was always I who eventually informed on myself, with God exactly the opposite is true. God IS everywhere, He sees all of us and everything we do, and He knows us better than we know ourselves. Personally speaking, I think that is wonderful!!!
Many people will admit that there is a God, and they will acknowledge His omnipresence (that He is everywhere), but the problem is that they’re not happy about it. Too many people have been taught that God is just watching and waiting for us to do something sinful so that He can punish us, strike us down, give us a disease, take something from us, smite us with His wrath – take your pick, but that impression of God is unfortunate – and wrong.
This misperception of God occurs when we forget that God is a triune, or three-part, Being. God the Father exists in Heaven, and it is He who is the Creator, the Supreme Designer of heaven and earth and everything that is in them. It is God the Father who spoke the universe into existence and who has planned your life and your future (Jeremiah 1:4-5, 29:11-13). God the Son is the Word, through whom the Father spoke and created all things (Genesis 1, John 1:1-5, 9-14) and who came into the world as Jesus Christ. Through Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection, we receive forgiveness of sin, healing of diseases and freedom from every form of bondage or curse. God the Holy Spirit is the part of God that lives in the earth today. Jesus told His disciples before He died that He was returning to the Father, but that He was not leaving them alone. He said that He would send a Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who would lead and guide them in all things (John 16:5-15). After His resurrection and before He ascended into heaven, Jesus told his followers to go into Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them, which happened on the Day of Pentecost, some fifty days following the day of Jesus’ crucifixion (Acts 1:1-9, Acts 2).
When you accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, you were acknowledging that God the Father has forgiven your sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (God the Son). God the Holy Spirit then came to live inside you to teach, guide, lead and comfort. The Holy Spirit is the power within you if you have accepted God’s gift of forgiveness (Ephesians 1:1-21). The Holy Spirit knows God’s plan for you. He is there to speak to your spirit, to show you what is right and what is wrong. The Holy Spirit is the presence of God within you. He convicts of sin, but He does not condemn (Romans 8:1). The Holy Spirit is the One who speaks to God the Father on your behalf when you aren’t sure how to pray or what to say (Romans 8:26).
Jesus is the One who sends the Holy Spirit to us. Ask Jesus to baptize you, to fill you, with the Holy Spirit, the presence of God. When that happens, you'll think it's wonderful, too!
Adapted from the author's website at http://www.seedwords.com/pages.asp?pageid=70540
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.