Someone once said to me, “I don’t know what it’s like to feel the presence of God; I’ve never felt this feeling of being on cloud nine, getting all shaky or chills or emotional and bursting into tears.” But are these sensations really the feeling of the Creator’s presence among us?
That was the personal account I heard from someone close to me. When I heard that, however, I immediately remembered the experience I had with God and how my “encounter” with Him was.
What should God’s presence do to us?
In fact, the first and greatest effect of feeling God’s presence in my life, if I can call it that, was acknowledging my sins against Him by listening to a certain biblical message that described the way I was living at that time. Such a message made me feel guilty for my sins and idolatries, for my negligence towards the Creator of my life. So after that, when I was finally impelled by divine inspiration to make a decision to follow God, then I felt sensations in my body and in my feelings.
In fact, sensations can be merely emotional, because those who truly unite with God completely change their way of living, as we can see in the verse below:
Therefore, if anyone is united with the Messiah, he is a new creation — the old has passed; look, what has come is fresh and new! And it is all from God, who through the Messiah has reconciled us to himself
2 Corinthians 5:17-18a
Complete Jewish Bible
Therefore, what further answer would I give regarding what it would be like to truly feel the presence of God? Emotional ecstasies can deceive us and are very subjective. If they are not a consequence of a real change in living, which is guided according to holiness from God and obedience to his word, we are hardly talking about a real manifestation of the presence of the ETERNAL.
So, the evidence that we really have the presence of God in our lives, that is, that He is indeed dwelling in us, must be directly related to connecting with Him through His holy word, as Jesus once said:
I have kept my Father’s commands and stay in his love.
Jn 15:10b
Therefore, those who do not obey God’s commandments cannot say that they have his presence with them! Obedience is the manifestation of the real presence of God in the believer, just see John 14:23. So, whoever does not obey him, in fact, does not have God dwelling in him (cf. Eph. 4:22-24).
So what are the sensations we have when we feel the presence of God?
I see people saying that they are feeling a strong presence of God in a certain place, whether in the temple, on the mountain, etc. Some of them say that they see angels, they also speak in strange tongues, they jump, they turn around, others even fall “swooning” claiming to have been “raptured in spirit”, so much did they feel the powerful presence of God on one occasion. Other people also cry and get emotional.
Despite all this, there are some people who attend religious temples and say:
“I’ve been searching, I’ve been praying and crying out to the Lord to feel His presence too, but I don’t feel anything. Why?
Is there something wrong with me?
Am I committing some sin and therefore I am not able to feel the presence of God?
After all, how can I feel the presence of God in my life, what should I do?”
Emotional experiences, chills, supposed raptures of “spirit” or other so-called “supernatural” things are not obligatory events to confirm that the presence of God is with us or that we are feeling it.
We are ordinary people and obviously we have moments of sentimentality, crying, emotion, etc. But many of these emotional moments can be generated by the circumstances of situations we experience, or the way we interpret and understand certain things.
Master Yeshua declares that the Father was always with him (John 16:32), but at no time do we see him feeling these “extraordinary” things that many people are feeling out there, claiming that this is a manifestation of the presence of God.
The Master stated that the Father was always with him because he did the things that pleased Him, see John 8:29.
So if we always practice the things that please God, He will always be with us too!
- See also: 5 Things You Can Do to Please God.
Based on this, we can conclude that feeling goosebumps, falling to the ground, being “raptured”, flying, jumping, screaming, laughing non-stop, spinning without getting dizzy, “surfing on oil”, seeing or “spitting a fireball”, are reactions with the excitement/emotion of the moment, and this is not a rule to determine if a person has the presence of God in him or not. While God may use visions or gestures to communicate a message to his people, remember, these things are not a rule!
Based on this, we can conclude that feeling goosebumps, falling to the ground, being “raptured”, flying, jumping, screaming, laughing non-stop, spinning without getting dizzy, “surfing on oil”, seeing or “spitting a fireball”, are reactions with the excitement/emotion of the moment, and this is not a rule to determine if a person has the presence of God in him or not. While God may use visions or gestures to communicate a message to his people, remember, these things are not the norm, and the same things are sometimes used to discriminate against people who don’t feel them too!
I don’t want to dare to say that God cannot speak through one of these “strange” means, because He is Sovereign and acts as He wants and in the way He wants, no one can lock Him in a “little box”! But we certainly shouldn’t take such things as a rule to determine whether a person is full of God’s presence or not, and still discriminate against people who don’t feel this or that. For His presence in our lives is clearly noticed by the fruits we bear (Titus 3:8), not by emotional ecstasies or hysterias.
And since we said that He is always with us through the sincere practice of the things that please Him, then I want to lead you, dear reader, to think again what it really means to feel the presence of God, and if such extravagant gestures necessarily must happen, supposedly evidencing its manifestation.
For example, many people are in the habit of saying the following words in their prayers:
“God, we come into your presence now to speak with you…”
or
“O Father, continuing in Your presence…”
But is the presence of God really a state of feeling/emotion that we enter and leave like this?
If you think that way, or if you pray like that too and have never asked yourself these things, I ask you to read the text below and reflect:
Yeshua answered him, “If someone loves me, he will keep my word; and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
John 14:23
Complete Jewish Bible
Now, if God and the Lord Yeshua make their abode with those who keep their words, then how can anyone “come in and out” of God’s presence occasionally?
Or is the presence of God found in the religious temple we attend, be it a church, synagogue, etc.? Or is this stronger in the hills at night? Do we really go to these places to feel His presence? Or would it not be more correct to say that we are the ones who take his presence with us when we go there or to any other place?
In fact, we also say this figuratively, because the Bible says that the God who made the world and everything in it, being the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples built by hands, nor is he ministered to by human hands, nor needs nothing, because He is the one who gives life and soul to every person […] so that they seek and investigate about God and find him through his creations, because certainly He is not far from any of us, because in Him we live and we move and exist… (Acts 17:24-25,27-28)
Thinking about it, would it be correct, when entering the temple, to say: “when I arrived here, my Lord was already here”? In a way yes, of course, because, as we read above, His presence fills the entire universe! However, limiting God’s presence to a location should not be used as a amulet to exclude that it is within us, and this should lead us to conduct ourselves according to His holiness! See 1Pe 1:15-16.
So, if God lives in us, His presence remains with us, so we continue transforming our entire being! It is the transformation of our life to be in accordance with His will (from His word) which is the true evidence and manifestation of His presence in us. Bodily expressions can be questionable if they are not followed by a sincere and obedient life before the ETERNAL.
With that, consequently, we don’t need to go to certain places to feel the presence of God or enter certain emotional states, because such presence is already within us and wherever we go we take it with us!
For we are the temple of the living God — as God said,
2 Corinthians 6:16b
“I will house myself in them, . . .
and I will walk among you.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.”
Complete Jewish Bible
So, if we are indeed sincere in our search for God, if we study His word with the intention of knowing Him, loving Him and “inviting” Him to dwell in our inner being, then our lives will be His abode, and we will walk with His presence all the time!
With this we must understand in practice that, when we enter our work environment, the presence of God is entering there with us; when we enter the classroom, the presence of God goes too; or when walking down the street, his presence also accompanies us, for God dwells in us as we love him and keep his word! Would that not be cause for rejoicing?
Finally, what we must do now is bring God’s presence to those who don’t have it! And we do this mainly by manifesting the practice of his commandments in our society, also through love for our neighbor, holiness, communion, fraternity, etc.
And now, brothers, shalom! Put yourselves in order, pay attention to my advice, be of one mind, live in shalom — and the God of love and shalom will be with you.
2 Corinthians 13:11
Complete Jewish Bible
Have you ever helped bring God’s presence to someone and it helped that person? Why, for the glory of God, don’t you share with us in the comments below?
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