Sensing the presence of God

Some people place too much emphasis on 'experiencing' the presence of God. On the other side, there are others who give importance only to understanding things in their mind. But both understanding and experience are necessary parts of our life. To rephrase James, if understanding does not produce experience, that kind of understanding is dead, ineffective or useless (Ja.2:26). Also, a wrong understanding cannot produce the right experience. But we must have the right understanding if we have to have the right experience.

If we only look for experience, we are on dangerous grounds. For example, someone who felt excited singing a song imagines that he has met with God, and assumes that now he is a child of God, even though he has not seen himself as a sinner before God and repented. Another man who has experienced a supernatural answer to prayer then believes that he has become a Christian. The danger here is that such people may stop looking for God and even close themselves to any word that tends to convict them.

Let me repeat. We must have the right understanding if we are to be sure that our experience is right. God has given us the Bible as His word to us, to teach us about Himself, His ways and to mould us into Him (2Ti.3:16,17). If we understand His word and direct our life to follow its teaching, we will be on the right path, and we will also have the right experience (Mt.7:24;26).

Our feelings can be excited in many different ways. If we think of excited feelings as a measure of our experience of God, it is possible that our natural feelings that excite us, such as when we sing some songs, when we repeat the same chorus again and again, when the rhythm picks up, when someone tells us that something good is going to happen to us, etc., may tell us that it is the presence of God. The presence of God does produce joy in us (Ps.16:11). But looking for thrilling feelings or excitement can be dangerous if it is not accompanied by a sense of falling down before God. (I am not talking about when preachers push people down.) Falling down before God in fear and trembling, in our heart and mind, when we recognise His awesome nature and at the same time seeing how sinful we are, is a clear mark of being in the presence of God. Remember what Isaiah experienced when he saw a vision of God (Is.6:5). Paul explains that such an experience is what would happen when there is a true spirit of prophecy in the church (1Co.14:24,25).

This is essentially in our heart and mind and not so much in our physical posture. It is easy to imitate the physical postures such as falling or kneeling down, raising hands, etc. Because many leaders emphasise physical actions from the people, because they are easier to reproduce, many people follow them and then get the impression that they have felt the presence of God.

Jesus said that true worship would be in spirit and truth (Jn.4:23). Let us preach the word of truth and obey it.