THE MANIFEST PRESENCE OF GOD

I praise God and the Lord Jesus daily for His love toward me and the comfort which comes from knowing that He is ever by my side, even when I may not sense it.  I recently wrote about this in an article on the comfort and strength of God’s presence in difficult times.  God often speaks in a still, small voice.  But there is more to God’s presence than that.  Sometimes He does come with a whirlwind and shakes the earth. All throughout the Scriptures, we read of the manifest presence of God. This is God working in a supernatural way to do some extraordinary thing in the lives of those whom He has redeemed.  It is the undeniable and visible reality of God’s Almighty Power.  It is not a hoped-for miracle; it is God doing the impossible in the life of a Christian for His glory.  Oh, that everyone who proclaims to know God would know the manifestation of His presence as well as the assurance and comfort of His presence!  I cannot claim that I have, but I hope I am not asking for selfish or prideful reasons when I pray for such a thing.  Is it biblical to do so?  Do we limit God because our theology does not allow for the supernatural?  I do believe that these are valid questions.  Thinking about these things and searching the Scriptures has led me to affirm that we cannot confine the Lord’s marvelous doings to ages past and look for them in the age to come, but rule them out in the present.  Maybe that is why we see so little of them.  We don’t expect God to do really big things, so we don’t pray big prayers.  I believe we can begin to pray really big prayers without abandoning sound doctrine.  In fact, I think God would delight in our doing so, with this qualification: God is God, and He alone exercises His power in accordance with His sovereign will. I would never deny that, so I reject the “name it and claim it” brand of evangelicalism that is rampant worldwide. There are many faith healers and prosperity preachers who are nothing but charlatans fleecing the flock.  May God reward them according to their works.  And yet, I must also have faith in the truth that God is a God of wonders and that we can come boldly to the throne of grace.  Jeremiah 33:3 is a prayer that I still pray: “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not. “  A. W. Tozer wrote, “What God in His sovereignty may yet do on a world-scale I do not claim to know: but what He will do for the plain man or woman who seeks His face I believe I do know and can tell others. Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days.”  The father of modern missions, William Carey said: "Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God."  One really great thing I would love to see God do in my lifetime is the outpouring of his Spirit in a genuine heaven- sent revival.  He has done it before and can do it again.  May He be pleased to revive a fallen church in a fallen land!

Dear brethren,

Pray bold prayers!