PRESENCE
07th Mar 2018
Moses is in a dilemma, he is struggling with the task of leading God’s people who are causing him immense problems. They have left Egypt, they are on their way to the Promised Land, but they have rebelled, made a golden calf and yet they need to move on.
As God is telling them to leave the place they have reached, he tells Moses, “I will send an angel before you to drive out the Canaanites, Amorites etc.” That does not please Moses, he needs something more that an angel and enters into a dialogue with God who eventually replies, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” “Then Moses said to him, “If your presence does not go with us do not send us up from here.” (Exodus 33:1-16)
The “Presence of God” was a transient thing for the Old Testament saints, David cries out in Psalm 51, “Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.” However, for us in the New Covenant, God wants us to know His presence as a daily, vibrant and living reality. Jesus said of the Holy Spirit in John 14, “But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.”
When I was baptised in the Holy Spirit, (something that I had been longing for even though my upbringing had made me resistant) as I was being prayed for there were not any fireworks or dramatic happenings, but I knew that my prayer had been answered because as I awoke the following morning, I was filled with the real and conscious presence of God.
That presence has never left me, there have been times when I have not lived as I should and lost the awareness of His presence, but the moment I have returned in repentance, the presence has flowed back in. I can fully understand the words of Jesus when He said, “You will leave me all alone. Yet, I am not alone, for my Father is with me.” (John 16:32)
The abiding “Presence of God” is the birthright of every believer, don’t live without it.
by Charles Sibthorpe
