The Universal Presence

Psalms 139:7 “Wither shall I go from thy spirit? Or wither shall I flee from thy presence?” KJV

As we continue with each chapter, we see a progression to our pursuit of God. We have seen the soul’s paradox of how we can know God and yet still pursue Him. That we have a responsibility to seek God for God alone and not for what He does for us but for who He is.

Then we saw how the things in our lives have taken the place of God in our hearts and lives and that we need to surrender everything to God, ripping out those very things and making God Lord of our lives.

We have seen how the veil has been removed and that we can now experience God’s presence in our lives daily. Sadly, so many Christians are complacent and don’t know that they can experience God’s presence personally.

Last week we saw how we can be aware of God’s presence in our lives through our five senses. As we begin to focus upon God, the things of the spirit will take shape before our inner eyes.

This leads to our next step in our pursuit of God, the Universal Presence; Seeing the Vastness of God.

So you can see how each step that we have taken on our spiritual journey is taking us deeper into our pursuit.

*Tozer explains that “The Universal Presence” is that God dwells in His creation and is everywhere individually present in all His works.

This is not to be confused with “Pantheism”; which leads to our first question of our homework.

*1. Explain in your own words the difference between pantheism

and the doctrine of the divine Presence.

Pantheism: It is that God is the sum of all created things. Nature and God are one, so that whoever touches a leaf or a stone touches God.

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That is, of course, to degrade the glory of the incorruptible Deity and, in an effort to make all things divine, banish all divinity from the world entirely.

Doctrine of Divine Presence: Is that while God dwells in His world that He created He is separated from it by a gulf forever impassable.

When I think of Divine Presence, I am reminded of one of God’s attributes: Omnipresence

Tozer establishes at least three aspects of God’s omnipresence:

a. God is near to everywhere, everyone and everything b. God has no borders

c. God has no size

God can be in all places at one time…He can be with everyone, and everything, in every place. He has no restrictions.

If God is everywhere, then He could not have any borders, because a border indicates the point at which something ends. Since God does not end, but is infinite, he cannot have borders.

And God cannot have size, because size indicates that something is measurable. If God is infinite, He cannot be measured. (Attributes of God volume one – study guide pg. 66)

So many times we put God in a box because that is what we understand. But God is not confined by space.

Let’s look at

Jeremiah 23:24: “Can anyone hide himself in secret places, so I shall not see him?" says the Lord; "Do I not fill heaven and earth?" says the

Lord. NKJV)

2 Chronicles 2:6 “But who is able to build Him a temple, since heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him...” (NKJV)

Solomon confessed as he was going to build a temple, God cannot be housed in a mere earthly temple since even the highest heavens cannot contain Him.

As an illustration: We live here where we see the ocean every day. If you take a bucket and submerge it into the ocean the bucket would be full of the

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ocean – right. So the bucket is full of the ocean, but yet the ocean surrounds the bucket in all directions.

So when God says He fills heaven and earth, He does. But heaven and earth are submerged in God, and all space is too. God is not contained, God contains. And there is the difference.

So we need to think out of the box – and not confine God to our space.

Tozer says: He is transcendent above all His works even while He is immanent within them.

*So when we talk about Divine Presence or Divine Immanence, it simply means that God is here. At no time, ever, are we away from the presence of God.

There is no one person who is closer to God, no one place that is closer to God. We are all equally close to God.

God is as close as our most secret thoughts. Have you ever thought about that? God is as close as our most secret thoughts. That is close! He is not a God a far off. He is as close as your most secret thoughts.

So why is it that we don’t always feel God’s presence in our lives?

Think back to our husband and wife illustration. The wife was reflecting on their relationship and feeling distant from her husband said to him, “You know honey, we don’t sit close together in the car like we use to”, the husband replied, “I’m sitting behind the steering wheel; if we don’t sit as close as we used to, I’m not the one who’s moved.”

This is the same as our relationship with God. He has not moved he is here with us always. It is not God that is causing the distance, but us.

When Adam and Eve sinned, they panicked and tried to hide themselves from the presence of the Lord.

*As we see in: Genesis 3:8 “And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” (NKJV)

Jonah tried to run away from God when he refused to do what God wanted: Jonah 1:3 “But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the

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fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. (NKJV)

So both of these examples show us of how they were trying to hide themselves from God’s presence because of self-interest – those self-hyphenated sins we heard of in previous lessons.

Adam and Eve became ashamed after their sin becoming aware of their sin nature. Jonah was just plain disobedient, he did not want to do what God wanted him to do. David, however, didn’t want to hide from God’s presence he wanted to be in God’s presence. In says in Psalms 15:1 “A Psalm of David. Lord, who may abide in Your tabernacle? Who may dwell in Your holy hill?” (NKJV)

The repetition of the interrogative particle “who” is not so much a question of the identity of those entering into God’s presence as it is of what kind of a person may enjoy his fellowship.

The verbs “dwell” and “abide” may be interpreted metaphorically for communion with God.

The complementary usage of “tabernacle” and “your holy hill” suggests the background of a pilgrimage to Mount Zion, God’s holy hill. There David had first placed a tent for the Ark of the Covenant. On that site the tent was later replaced by the magnificent temple of Solomon. (The Expositor’s Bible commentary)

The presence of God was centralized, in the Old Testament and in Jesus’ time, in the tabernacle (temple).

So when David asked who may abide in your tabernacle he was showing a deep desire to live in Christ’s presence.

Ladies, we need to examine our lives.

Are we like Adam and Eve, ashamed of our sin and therefore trying to hide from the presence of God instead of coming to His loving arms in repentance?

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Are we like Jonah, not being obedient to what God wants us to do?

Or are we like David whose heart’s desire is to be in God’s presence?

The issue of being fully surrendered and obedient to God cannot be stressed enough.

Tozer rightly points out that these areas are the difference between nominal Christian living and a radiant Christian life.

Ladies, how can we live a nominal Christian life when we know we can live a radiant Christian life? We need to fully surrender and be obedient to God. We need to be aware of God’s presence in our lives not trying to hide from Him.

The Presence and the manifestation of the Presence are not the same. There can be the one without the other.

Let’s look at Genesis 28:16, “Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it." (NKJV)

God is here when we are wholly unaware of it.

Jacob had never been for one second out of God’s presence. But he knew it not. That is the problem with so many Christians today. If we really believed that, think about how our lives would be.

See this chair; now think about God sitting there. How do you feel? Would you act any different knowing God is sitting there?

Think about what you are going to be doing today, now think God is going to be with you, how will you spend your day? Is it any different?

Jacob discovered that God was always in his presence that any place is “the house of God” because God is there.

Jacob dedicated himself to the Lord that morning and claimed the promises that God had made to him. It didn’t mean his life from then on was pure bliss; he still had to pay the consequences of his sins. But now he was aware of God’s presence in his life.

Knowing that God is with us, should make our lives different.

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God is manifested only when and as we are aware of His presence.

*On our part, there must be surrender to the Spirit of God, for His work is to show us the Father and the Son. If we cooperate with Him in loving obedience, God will manifest Himself to us, and that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life and a life radiant with the light of His face. (p. 60)

Always, everywhere God is present, and always he seeks to discover Himself to each one of us. He would reveal not only that He is, but what He is as well. He did not have to be persuaded to reveal Himself to Moses.

Exodus 34:5 “And the Lord descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord”. He not only made a verbal proclamation of his nature but He revealed His very Self to Moses so that the skin of Moses’ face shone with the supernatural light.

Ex 34:30 “ So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him.” (NKJV)

God will manifest Himself to us if we but seek Him. It is not a matter of miles but of experience.

I heard a story of how Dwight L Moody was praying that God would impact his ministry and he felt God’s presence come over him where he felt such a joy. When he went to preach, he did not change his message or his approach but more people than ever were touched by his sermon than before. He knew God was speaking through him to the people.

Ladies, we should live a “Radiant Christian Life”. We should have a yearning for a manifestation of God’s Presence, a yearning that we should cultivate.

God is in our Presence, he has not moved. As it says in: Psalms 139:7-10

Psalms 139:7-10 “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?  If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me.” (NKJV)

So in reviewing, why do some “find” God in a way others do not? Why do some have deep experiences and others struggle constantly in the “half-light of imperfect Christian experience”?

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The difference lies not with God but with us.

We are talking about having a personal relationship with God, being aware of His presence in our lives. Let’s not be like Jacob and say “Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not”.

Ladies we need to have Spiritual Receptivity. Meaning we need to be in our word daily and communicating with God daily so that we will hear Him when He speaks. When we feel the urge from the Holy Spirit, we need to act as

*David did in Psalms 27:8 “When You said, "Seek My face," My heart said to You, "Your face, Lord, I will seek." (NKJV)

We need to be diligent about seeking God. When we feel Christ calling we need to say “yes Lord”, not run as Jonah did.

Important as it is that we recognize God working in us, however; we need to remember that he is working in us and through us – can’t be passive and say God is working in us and we don’t have any responsibility. We do have a responsibility to follow hard after God.

Tozer said: “The idea of cultivation and exercise, so dear to the saints of old, has now no place in our total religious picture. It is too slow, too common. We now demand glamour and fast-flowing dramatic action. A generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines is impatient of slower and less direct methods of reaching their goals. We have been trying to apply machine-age methods to our relations with God. We read our chapter, have our short devotions and rush away, hoping to make up for our deep inward bankruptcy by attending another gospel meeting or listening to another thrilling story told by a religious adventurer lately returned from afar.” pg.65

Can you imagine, Tozer wrote this in 1948, 61 years ago? He talked about a generation of Christians reared among push buttons and automatic machines being impatient of slower and less direct methods. Think about how far we have progressed since then, the first commercial microwave was produced in 1954 and the first domestic microwave was produced in 1967, making meals quicker. We have commercials advertising faster internet so we don’t have to wait on downloads; finallyfast.com.

We live in a day and age that everything is fast, we want everything quick and easy. We need to slow down! We need to take time and cultivate our relationship with God!

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In our fast pace world it is a no wonder we don’t know each other. You have families so busy that they don’t have time for each other.

Tozer said: “It will require a determined heart and more than a little courage to wrench ourselves loose from the grip of our times and return to biblical ways.” —Pursuit of God, The

Meaning, we need to slow the pace down. Take time to cultivate your relationship with God. Think about your life; Are you aware of God’s presence in your life? Knowing that every moment He is with you. He wants you to experience his presence in your life. Be obedient to the urges that you feel from the Holy Spirit. Cultivate your relationship with God so that you know your saviors voice.

They differed from the average person in that when they felt the inward longing they did something about it. They acquired the lifelong habit of spiritual response. .—Pursuit of God, The

Any man who by repentance and a sincere return to God will break himself out of the mold in which he has been held, and will go to the Bible itself for his spiritual standards, will be delighted with what he finds there.

Let us say it again: The universal Presence is a fact. God is here. The whole universe is alive with His life. And He is no strange or foreign God, but the familiar Father of our Lord Jesus Christ whose love has for these thousands of years enfolded the sinful race of men. And always He is trying to get our attention, to reveal Himself to us, to communicate with us. We have within us the ability to know Him if we will but respond to His overtures. (And this we call pursuing God!) We will know Him in increasing degree as our receptivity becomes more perfect by faith and love and practice. —Pursuit of God, The

Ladies, we need to get “I” out of our vocabulary. An interesting fact a friend of my husband’s once told him was that “I” was not mentioned in Genesis until after the fall. I did a search and found that it wasn’t until Genesis 3:10 that Adam used the word “I”.

“So he said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself." Gen 3:10 (NKJV)

He was self-aware – those self-hyphenated sins began. Up until then, they experienced the presence of God Daily.

God wants to fellowship with us. Let’s pray Tozer’s Prayer

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O God and Father, I repent of my sinful preoccupation with visible things. The world has been too much with me. Thou hast been here and I knew it not. I have been blind to Thy presence. Open my eyes that I may behold Thee in and around me. For Christ’s sake. Amen —Pursuit of God, The

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