How To Walk In The Presence Of God: The Heart Prayer Of Simplicity Series

"God our Father has made all things depend on faith so that whoever has faith will have everything, and whoever does not have faith will have nothing." -Martin Luther.

There is a key that’s very important in this journey, it’s the key of believing something is true.

This concept has been used incorrectly in the past to justify all sorts of silly things. “If you just believe hard enough for a sports car, it will appear in your drive way. If you just believe hard enough that you can fly, you’ll jump off the ground and start flying." We know those things aren't true.

But, let’s take a more concrete example. I recall when I first came up to the idea of learning how to read, I was quite nervous. I thought this is just beyond me, there’s no way I can figure this out. I was sitting there in first grade thinking to myself, I don’t believe I can do this. But, slowly but surely as the teacher taught and retaught the concepts, I began to learn. And I began to believe that I could learn to read. Then I did learn to read.

If you don’t believe you can find a good job, what happens? You don’t find a good job. But if you really believe you can find a good job, you have something, a faith, that propels you forward, and you search and you apply, and you keep believing that you’ll find a decent job. And sure enough, one day you do. You have a faith and confidence that is operative there.

It’s something we know is true in our society: You can find a job. Or you can learn to read. We’d be foolish if we thought it wasn’t possible.

It’s the same with God’s kingdom, there are things that we need to believe, in order to access kingdom systems. It’s not our belief that makes them appear. No. It’s the fact that God has set it up. It’s there. And we can access it by faith.

There is one key fact I want you to begin to believe as we go through this topic.

It’s this: I can walk in the presence of God.

Some of you believe that, some of you don’t. Some of you don’t believe that and don’t care to have that. Others here do believe that, but haven’t experienced it yet. And some here do believe that and currently experience it.

Is that concept biblical that we can walk in the presence of God? In fact it is, it’s mentioned many times throughout the Bible, but the most famous is probably Genesis 5:24, “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.”

That’s our goal as well. That we would walk with God in our lives, and then one day, God will take us home.

It’s also said of Noah, that he walked with God. From Genesis 6:9, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.” NIV renders it "faithfully walked" other translations simply say "walked with God."

Noah walked with God. Enoch walked with God. Indeed many of the greats have walked with God. But just as many average everyday believers have found this blessed life of walking in the presence of God. You don’t have to be a legend of the Bible to walk in God’s presence.

Madam Guyon states in her book, I know that most Christians don’t feel that they of all people have “been called to a deep inward relationship to their Lord” (p.1). She continues, “But we have all been called to the depths of Christ just as surely as we have been called to salvation.”

What is salvation? It’s being reconciled to God. Our sins are forgiven. We become born again. We enter into the total approval and peace of God. We are brought back into contact with the God who made the human race. But that isn't the end of it!

The moment we receive the new birth is not the end of the journey, it’s the beginning. The rest of our days we spend learning what it means to “walk in the presence of God.”

I know in many circles there is a very transactional way of viewing salvation, Christ died for our sins, we received forgiveness by His blood, we were born again, and we received the Holy Spirit within. That's great stuff, don't get me wrong, all 100% true! But all of that is the process by which we’re brought into right communion with God. It's the starting point, not the end in itself!

Now that we have the prize of communion with God we should run with it, and grow in it, for all the many years ahead of us. As the scriptures say, come into maturity, find a stability in our walks with God, where we go deeper, and we really learn to go to the depths of Jesus Christ.