Shalom dear doves,
 

For many of us, 'in the later days',

especially after certain, 'of God', trials have come our way,

these vital and encouraging words, are aboundantly appreciated:
 

   '... and you will seek Me,
    and find Me,
    when you seek for Me,
    with all your heart,
    I will be found of you.'
 

Might this short 'find' today, be instructive then, of a
subtle [last days] ploy, to take the 'God ordained'
and twist it to our own devestation.
 

Now regarding ...

   " ... the growing PREoccupation of many of God's saints to
     desire 'the felt presence' of God."
 

~~~
 

It is somehow implied that this is the summum bonum of faith, the high water mark of true spirituality; and that in this exalted realm, supposedly, lies the key to revelation and anointing in all that could be coveted for successful ministry.   ...

... [Note what] characterized the apostle Paul and especially Jesus Himself when ultimately tested at the Cross.  The cry, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" ... is this the statement of a momentary lapse of the Father, or the supreme moment of the Son's sonship in an obedience that does not falter whether it is present or absent?  It might well prove to be our own supreme moment.  [Even if we don't feel His presence some time, should we not still believe His Word that He will never leave or forsake us, and re-confess His Word that He will forgive us our sin, as we confess it to Him, ... even our frail belief in His Word?]

This kind of abiding consciousness of God is the province, I suspect, only of those whose whole life, purpose and reason for being is the Lord's.  Those who are yet independent entities with their own designs, however spiritual and consecrated will prefer a 'presence' to augment that spirituality and confirm them in their dedication.  Can it be that many of the spurious revivals of our time have given opportunity to the enemy to duplicate in the soul-realm of the naive and unsuspecting those coveted experiences the result of which has neither fostered maturity nor been enduring?  Is it not better to have one's secret life hid with God in Christ .... with that "pious mind that views all things in God and God in all things"?  The one who is anxious to obtain the 'presence' risks haunting doubts about himself should he fail, and forfeits the very peace where "the abiding companionship of God" waits to be enjoyed.

"The reality of God's presence is not dependent on any place, but only dependent upon the determination to set the Lord always before us".  The need to feel or experience God presupposes ourselves as separate from Him rather than in Him, needing, therefore, to confirm in our experience what our faith should already attest. While the Lord in His grace might bestow the same, the enemy is equally alert to the opportunity to duplicate or counterfeit the thing desired.

Our principal problem is an inadequate knowledge of God for the want of which we tend to make Him an accessory to our own will "imagining God to be a vague extrapolation of our own desires".  [Note the TWICE recorded, words of Jesus to us: Ye err, ye err greatly, not knowing either the scriptures, nor the power of God.]

Some thought ought to be given to the danger of a presumption that encourages the seeking after ... an 'experience'.  The consequence of disappointed expectation of the sincerest believers can result in a sense of rejection and of self-condemnation, inwardly ascribed to some lack in themselves in which they could not 'qualify'.  This is not to imply that the experience of God's presence is neither to be desired nor to be enjoyed when it comes.  But to make it the object of willful quest as something to be obtained at human initiative or intent is to detract from the sovereignty of God and to give undue emphasis and dependency on what originates and issues from man.

How much better to be surprised by God in moments of His own choosing than to determine a time and place where He is obligated to meet us.  In this way, we walk the walk incumbent upon us undistracted.  To seek God's face is indeed commended to us in Psalm 24, but the motive is not what we might hope to enjoy from that seeking, which, ironically, may well equate to "lifting up our souls unto vanity", but rather the better knowledge of Him unto reverence and fear.  So to, intercession for revival ought to be for the outpouring of His Spirit unto repentance for the unregenerate, and remorse and return for the callow and faded believer¯and not what would otherwise be an experience for its own sake.

As I have already hinted, our bravest and most significant moment might come as it did for the Lord in the absence of the felt presence of the Father, ("My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"), upheld by the faith of a true knowledge of God the Father that does not require explanation, and that at the very moment His presence is so crucially desired.  That faith crowned Jesus at the zenith of His sonship and waits, I believe, to crown ours.
 

~~~
 
 

Shalom shalom,

David

dwzavitz@yahoo.com
dwzavitz@mymelody.com
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