I Rest in Christ, 4: Manifest Presence
In Ezekiel 17:1-10 there is a story about a valley full of dry bones which are brought to life through the prophecies of Ezekiel as directed by the Lord God. These dry bones are a good image of the condition our bodies without the manifest presence of God in our lives.
Manifest presence—these are grand sounding words which most people don’t understand. Manifest means to be made known. When applied to the Lord God it means that He makes His presence known to us in our lives. Without God’s manifest presence our lives are like those dry bones in that valley: there is no life in them. With God’s manifest presence in our lives we reflect His life in all of our activities. Have you ever been out in your town and seen a parent walking down the street holding a child’s hand? That child is completely at peace holding his mom or dad’s hand, knowing he is fully protected and fully cared for. It is the same way with us and God except we are often like that other scene where the parent is literally having to drag the child along because the child just doesn’t want to go!
Jesus addresses this in the very first verse (except for the introductory verse) in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). This verse says Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Poor in spirit is the phrase He uses to address the realization we all must come to; that we engage with so little of what God has available for us. At some point in each of our lives we come to the point at which we realize all the workings and swirling seas of the world system are nothing but a distraction from the most important issue of our day: Close connection with God. America is a post-Christian culture now as most Americans barely acknowledge God exists, or if they do acknowledge Him it is in a sort of intellectual assent, not in a personal, relational, intimate way. God is calling all of His children back to Him in an intimate way. He wants to maintain a manifest presence in our lives and to accomplish that He is calling us to attain a poorness of spirit in our hearts.
Poorness of spirit means to be aware of the personal need for greater spiritual growth. It recognizes we are powerless to affect any real change in our lives except through the presence of the Holy Spirit. It recognizes we are in a condition of spiritual neediness and deficiency; that we have a profound and deep need for the manifest presence of God in our lives. There are three ways one can respond to this idea of poorness of spirit.
Passively: We can see how superficial our spiritual condition is, but that doesn’t move us to action. We see the situation as so bad we can’t possibly fix it, so we don’t even try.
Pridefully: We don’t even see the lack of a spiritual connection. We think we are doing really great and totally miss the reality of our lack of true fellowship with God.
Pursuingly: We see our superficial relationship with God, and although we are frail and prone to sin, we do the best we can. We know it is not enough but look for the 100-fold return promised by God.
Pursuing God is not easy. After all, He is invisible, and we are so caught up with what we see. But Jesus provided the answer to that problem when He said in John 15:9, “Just as the Father has loved Me; I have also loved you. Abide in my love.” But how does that help? It just trades one question for another. If I am a child of God, don’t I already live (abide) in His house? Doesn’t He already abide in my heart? When Jesus uses abide here, He is talking more about relationship than residence.
Abiding in Jesus’ love carries implications. Do we spend time with Him? Do we talk with Him? Do we listen to what He has to say? Abiding is all about internals. Do you remember the parable about the Pharisee and the Tax Collector? They both had gone to the temple to pray. While the Pharisee was all about appearance, how he looked and what people would think, and was grateful that he wasn’t like this disgusting tax collector, the tax collector himself pleaded for God’s forgiveness because he was such a sinner. Experiencing the manifest presence of God or abiding in Jesus’ love is all about the condition of our heart. It has nothing at all to do with externals. When Jesus said we should ‘abide in His love’ He was saying growth in the Kingdom of God requires effort. Yes, it is true that having accepted Him as our Savior guarantees a place in eternity, but if we stop with that, we receive no rewards in heaven. In Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus says, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. So abiding in Christ involves obeying Him. There in lies the rub: we can’t simply checkoff the salvation box and then go on living like the world.
So we have to change the way we live and that may be the most difficult thing we will ever try to do. But that is exactly why Jesus says to abide in Him. Jesus is the best support system that ever existed. We don’t live the way God wants us to by giving it the ‘old college try’, or by turning over a new leaf, or through New Year’s resolutions, but by resting in Him, and allowing Him to make changes in us. And that means to have relationship with Him on a daily basis. We can’t help but grow as long as we stay plugged in to Jesus. But, if you have ever had a friend who never reciprocated your attempted contact, you know that kind of relationship soon ends. Relationship requires two-way involvement.
A good way to do that with God is to establish a ‘solid rock’ in your schedule where you spend 30 minutes talking with Him every day. Talk with Him, read His Word and meditate on it. That’s essential. It is also good to just talk with Him all day long. 100 5-second conversations amount to just over 8 minutes after all. These are the times when you tell Him how beautiful that sunrise is or ask Him why you are so irritated with that co-worker, or why you just had that vengeful thought. These are prayers too.