PURPOSE TO PRACTISE THE PRESENCE OF GOD by steve johnson
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he Bible makes it clear that God is everywhere. “’Can anyone hide from me in a secret place? Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?’ says the LORD” (Jeremiah 23:24). But there’s more than just that God is everywhere. Through Christ’s death and Resurrection believers are brought into the very presence of God “because we are united with Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6, 13). We are in Christ and Christ is in us meaning He is always with every believer in a personal way. Our entire life is lived in the presence of God and permeated by Him. “For in him we live and move and exist” (Acts 17:28). Let’s take this even a step further. Rather than merely giving mental assent to those truths or taking them for granted, God invites us to be fully aware of Him and live in His presence. As A.W. Tozer writes, we are to “recognize the real presence of the
One whom all sound theology declares to be already there…The resultant experience is not visionary but real.”¹ This is what is meant by practising the presence of God. Again citing Tozer as he reflects on the omnipresence of God, practicing the presence of God means, “for us to learn to realize this in conscious experience.”² It means keeping in mind that God is with us as we go about our day and making a habit of being aware of and responding to God’s abiding presence. It is walking with God through our day continually conversing with Him from our heart and referring all we do to Him. In some mysterious way God has ordered our minds such that we can be in prayer and worship at the same time as we are going through our daily routine or doing our daily work. We can layer practices into our normal everyday life to allow God’s presence to infuse every moment and detail.
