Part 1/3 - Understanding Visitation and Habitation -
I stood on the platform of the
small, midwestern church I was pastoring.
It was during our worship time in the service. I was struggling because I could not feel the
presence of God. I prayed, “Father,
please come and be with us.” A few
minutes later, I “felt” the presence of God come into the service. As I stood there I said, “Thank you God for
coming.” God said, “Now that I am here,
what are you going to do with me?” This
is a true story.
A few years later I was working
for a friend of mine who was a Christian attending an old line denominational
church. Our Office manager was a Spirit-filled
Christian. On Friday mornings the three of us would have an office prayer
meeting. One morning as we prayed, the
presence of God was very strong. No one said a word for about 10-15
minutes. We just sat in the awesome
silence. My friend broke the
silence. “So that’s what that feels
like!” He had “felt” the presence of God
for the first time in his Christian life.
I have had many more powerful experiences
with what I call the “manifest presence of God,” but these will suffice for
this series of articles. I want to make
three points about the presence of God.
Point one: There are times when
we sense the presence of God in more significant ways than others.
Point two: This does not mean we are not in the presence
of God when we don’t feel Him at all.
Point three: Should “feeling the
presence of God” be the epitome of our experience? Or is there something more we should be
after?
Point one
My experience from the first
story taught me two important things.
First, that my assumption was wrong.
I thought God was only there when I felt Him. The second was that I limited what God wanted
to do by limiting my expectation. I was
content to “feel the presence of God” (whether anyone else could wasn’t even a
consideration at that point.) My expectation was fulfilled. I had my experience. I could cross my arms and say, “okay, we had
a good service.” I was very naive in the
past.
However, God pulled me up short
with His challenge. “What are you going
to do with me now that I am here?” Do
with you? I hadn’t even considered that.
My expectation never went beyond feeling His presence. I had always stopped there. I assumed if He was there -- and I could feel
it -- that others could too, and that was enough. We would know we were the chosen people of God
because God showed up. It validated us. We
felt good that we had invited God and He came. However, God’s manifest presence
in our individual or congregational lives isn’t a badge of approval. It is a sign that He wants to work, and God
works in very unlikely and unholy people at times.
The Bible speaks of a visitation
of God and a habitation of God. Visitations
were times when God would “visit” His people for the specific purpose of either
for blessing or judgment. A visitation is relatively brief compared to
habitation. In the first, someone visits
and leaves; the other is where you live. If you are having visitors over, you might
clean the house and prepare some special things. Then the visit will end and
things will be back to normal. However, in a dwelling, things are much more
casual. You let your hair down. You get real.
You walk around in your underwear – something you probably wouldn’t do
with visitors present. Life happens in dwellings – the good, the bad and the
ugly.
Christianity is a daily lifestyle
not a weekly service. I believe we have settled for visitations when God wants
a habitation. In Exodus 25 we find God challenging
the Israelites to, “Build me a sanctuary, that I might dwell among you.” This was the beginning. We find the conclusion of God’s desire in
Revelation 21:3, “And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold,
the tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall dwell with them, and they shall
be His people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.”
I find it difficult to think His
desire changed in the middle. The very concept of the indwelling Spirit is that
we are never apart from God – as if God and Jesus were somewhere in outer space
and had to be called down to where we are.
While we would never minimize the
presence of God, we need ask the question: should “feeling the presence of God”
be the end goal of our experience with God, or is it the doorway to a greater
work of God in our lives? Christian singers and songwriters Steve and Annie
Chapman wrote a song which, in part, said, “To come into the presence of the
living God is to be changed. You cannot
come into His high and Holy Place and stay the same. So, change me Lord, remake me Lord, conform
me to the image of your son.”
When the Bible relates stories of
people who encountered God there was always a significant reaction. It was not a ho-hum experience. However today, some people can come to church
and nothing ever changes. In fact for
many, church is a necessary evil to be endured, at least on occasion, with no
thought that something life-changing is going to happen. (If there were some
life-changing expectation, our churches would be full!) What is wrong with this picture?
God wants to work in and through
us. It takes a genuine understanding of
His ever-present-ness in our lives and churches for this to happen on a
consistent basis. Are you settling for
visitations, or are you building a habitation for God?
I'm building a habitation for God! This really spoke to me. It's my prayer that God's people will hear His voice to go higher in Him this year. That we will get his strategy and that His Kingdom will be our number one focus. I'm on it, Pastor. May God empower you and your family as you work in His Vineyard there. You are in my prayers. Rev Helen Davies/DallasTx
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