The Power of God’s Presence

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION

“There is a strain of loneliness infecting many Christians, which only the presence of God can cure.”

“…blessing come[s] to the church when we stop looking at a picture of God and look at God Himself…when, no longer satisfied just to know about a God in history, we meet…Him in living, personal experience.... We desperately need a divine visitation—for our situation will never be cured by sermons! It will never be cured until the Church of Christ has suddenly been confronted with what one man called the mysterium tremendum—the fearful mystery that is God, the fearful majesty that is God. This is what the Holy Spirit does. He brings the wonderful mystery that is God to us, and presents Him to the human spirit.”

~A.W. Tozer (1897-1963) pastor, author, and magazine editor

“The holy is hidden and veiled; we cannot grasp it with our intellect, but only approach it with awe and wonder.”

~Rudolf Otto (1869-1937), German Lutheran theologian and philosopher

“There is an experiential knowledge of God that profoundly changes a person from the inside out. God is known in the soul in such an overwhelming way that it affects a person’s entire perception of life.”

~Conrad Mbewe, founding chancellor of African Christian University in Zambia

“It is easier for us to get to know God than to know our own soul...God is nearer to us than our own soul, for He is the ground in which it stands....”

~Julian of Norwich (c.1343-1416), English anchoress

“A believer longs after God, to come into his presence, to feel his love, to feel near to him in secret…. Ah! dear brethren, have you ever tasted this blessedness? There is greater rest and solace to be found in the presence of God for one hour than in an eternity of the presence of man.”

~Robert Murray M’Cheyne (1813-1843), minister in the Church of Scotland

“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.”

~C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), writer and literary scholar

“Peace comes not from the absence of trouble, but from the presence of God.”

~Alexander MacLaren (1826-1910), Scottish minister

SERMON PASSAGE

Psalm 114 (ESV)

Psalm 114

1 When Israel went out from Egypt,

  the house of Jacob from a people of strange language,

2 Judah became his sanctuary,

  Israel his dominion.

3 The sea looked and fled;

  Jordan turned back.

4 The mountains skipped like rams,

  the hills like lambs.

5 What ails you, O sea, that you flee?

  O Jordan, that you turn back?

6 O mountains, that you skip like rams?

  O hills, like lambs?

7 Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,

  at the presence of the God of Jacob,

8 who turns the rock into a pool of water,

  the flint into a spring of water.

Jeremiah 23

24 Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord.

Acts 17

28 …‘In him we live and move and have our being’…

Psalm 139

7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?

  Or where shall I flee from your presence?

8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!

  If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

9  If I take the wings of the morning

  and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

10 even there your hand shall lead me,

  and your right hand shall hold me.

John 7

37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.