Practicing The Presence Of God
I first learned the concept of practicing of the presence of God from the book, The Purpose Driven Life, when the author Rick Warren mentioned the classical book, The Practice Of The Presence Of God. Within a short time, I saw a copy of the classic in a Christian library and picked it up.
If God didn’t arrange the coincidence in the library, I would not have read it and the changes that came afterward would have gone missed.
I fell in love with the book once I opened it. Later, me and my friend purchased many copies and gave them out for free.
It revolutionized my Christian life. It was like a major revamp. To this day, the presence of God is still going strong and the level of intimacy has never receded.
Biblical foundation of the Practice Of The Presence Of God
Although the author of TPOTPOG, Brother Lawrence, didn’t mention many biblical references in the book, almost every aspect of TPOTPOG stem from God’s basic commands that we as Christian were familiar with. The way he devotes himself to live out the commands and share the insights through human words make it very enjoying and inspiring.
I thought, it was so easy! Lawrence made it clear and concise what we must do and what attitude we must have to walk with God.
Prior to the reading, I had always wondered why it felt like something was missing in my relationship with God. There was a void to be filled, but I didn’t know how to fill it. I had been going to church and fellowship with other Christians regularly, and I had quiet time with the Lord everyday, but there was a silent yearning beneath my soul.
What Will I Experience Through Practicing The Presence Of God?
Through practicing, you will be able to see the Lord and focus on Him in everything you do. You will find the power and desire to do His will amid all the usual obstacles, distraction, and chaos in life. You will be able to see and testify what God’s perfect will is in things big or small. You don’t have to do big things and take big leaps every time, even in the small things you will be able to handle them in a way that pleases the Lord.
You will gradually become a fireball for God. At first, you may not sense it, but when you can feel the intensity, it already happened. All the lukewarmness and complacency will be consumed by an intense desire to seek God.
Think You Will Feel Holy And Satisfied? Maybe Quite The Opposite!
Instead of feeling holy, the presence of God may make you feel quite the opposite! You will see every hidden sinful attitude and transgressions against God and others. You will see blind spots that you have previously missed. You will mourn for the complacency and lukewarmness of the past (In the presence of the Lord you will see your previous lifestyle as complacent and lukewarm, even if by human standard you were not) and feel intense pain for allowing yourself to have lived that way.
The fire gives you intense desire and focus for the Lord, but it can also pain you.
Rather than satisfaction or “as a deer panteth for the water”, you will feel very thirsty and hungry for more spiritual insights and growth. You will be afraid to miss out any chance to grow and serve the Lord. Anymore missing out with God’s perfect plan will pain you to no end because you can now see the eternal chain consequences of everything you do in obedience to God’s will, the blessings are too great, and therefore too painful to miss.
Random, Spontaneous, and Being On-call All The Time
You will discover that God like you to take the leap of faith when things are uncertain. Human likes to know what is going on, and what will happen, but the Lord’s servants are likely to engage one unexpected adventure after another.
You won’t know whom you are going to meet at any time, whom you are going to share the gospel with tonight, and out of a sudden God might prompt you to do something challenging such as to preach to a crowd on a very short notice.
The first year I practiced the presence of God I was a University student. Back then I would often take a walk in the Campus and run into friends. There were quite a few times when I met an acquaintance, a new friend whom I’d met for only a couple of hours, or an old friend whom I hadn’t met in a while, and God would ask me to share the gospel with them. Every time I obeyed God’s prompting the person I talked to accepted Christ!
God will work wonders around you if you obey His orders. See my article Self Doubt And The Leap Of Faith Part 3: Power And Desire to learn more about seeking God’s will and do the seemingly undoable by God’s grace.
Stretching You To Your Furthest Limit
You will become a threat to Satan’s kingdom, so expect him to wage a major campaign against you for as long as you live. If you are unalert and/or uninformed of his schemes, you will suffer continuous casualties. If you want to know why even a godly man can suffer unjust and undeserved attacks that can make your life tough, see my article on Spiritual Battle…And The Cost Of Not Engaging In It.
God will give you exciting projects to do, but the more success you enjoy, the more it can reveal your character flaws.
It’s like stress testing – you might be cool when things are normal, but God will test you by allowing things overload. You might be able to forgive one person at a time, but how about two? Three? Or many within a short time?
God will give you many challenging tasks to do, but His grace is sufficient, and He will also allow the enemies to launch waves of attacks on you – to see how long you can hold out, to test your faith and character under trying circumstances.
When people see success in you, they will be attracted by you. Many will come to you and ask for one thing or another. But be careful whom you fellowship with. Some are wolves under sheep clothing. And even Christians can be used by Satan to hurt you.
Many will come to you because they see that you have influences, so they want to use you for their own purposes, for examples, to rebuke their spouses and vindicate them in relational conflicts; to give you a bad report of someone they held grudges against so you will stand on their sides and that they can quote you in gossips or arguments; and to complain about something so you will fix the problems for them, etc.
Pray for wisdom and discernment! Don’t fall into these traps! Otherwise you spirit and soul will be contaminated!
The are many traps on your path to higher ground! Satan, the world, and those who live according to the flesh will try to pull you back as you practice the presences of God. On the other hand, the Lord will give you important assignments which test your faith and character. You will grow as you learn to defend yourself against the former and embrace the latter.
With Friends Like That, Who Needs Enemies?
There are roughly two kinds of Christians, carnal Christian and spiritual Christian. Carnal Christians seldom pray and fellowship with the Lord when alone, but they might still go to church regularly and can be very active in the Church socially, which is the problem.
These carnal Christians can also be active in a ministry, and that can create a lot of stumbling blocks for those around.
By definition, a carnal Christian is a Christian who runs his or her own show, with Christ as their savor, but not their Lord. A man who relies on self cannot help but creates many consequences that are eternally bad.
Even apostle Paul was grieved by such Christians:
20[Paul:]For I am afraid that when I come I may not find you [The Corinthians Church] as I want you to be, and you may not find me as you want me to be. I fear that there may be quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder. 2 Corinthians 12:20
These are fruits of carnal living. And those who live according to flesh (Carnal Christian) naturally persecute the spiritual Christian:
29But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Galatians 4:29
Until they see their errors and repent, they will create problems for each other and for those who purpose to live by the Spirit. They despise what they don’t understand, and because a carnal Christian don’t understand a spiritual Christian, the carnal will persecute the spiritual out of ignorance and narrow-mindedness.
Carnal and Spiritual are opposite polar, but it’s not like you are either one or another – it’s like a spectrum where most people fall in between. Unfortunately, most people lean on the carnal side, and many are heavily carnal (But you may not find them to be frequent church goers anyway)! Be prepared for unpleasant experience when fellowship with carnal Christians.
I wrote an article about the harmful effect of bad friends, click here to see how you may avoid them.
Surrender All
God will come to you from time to time to ask for more of you. Can you surrender your relationship life to Him? Can you give up dating and reserve yourself for someone special? Can you surrender a prestigious career and follow your true calling? Can you surrender worldly entertainment and trust God as the sole provider of joy and peace?
Every time God come to ask you for something, there will be a lot of soul searching, discerning, some confusions, and ultimately, the best way out is to surrender, or you can stay where you are, but that’s not going to be the best place to be. You either choose the world from the start and embrace a self driven life, or you choose God and live a spirit driven life. Anything in between is not going to please anyone, and you will be left in limbo (figuratively, I don’t mean literally)!
Even after you decide to surrender, the temptations to take things back to your own hands will remain strong. The gal or guy you are smitten with is going to be around that you don’t know where else to look at, people will ask why you don’t apply for this or that job with your degree, and there will be many advice on how to take control of your life and etc.
More On Practicing The Presence Of God
To practice the presence of God in this age is challenging. It requires many spiritual knowledge, awareness, and training. The rewards of this discipline are exceedingly great that it worth to have an entire training program devoted to it.
The book itself is written in old English, but I somehow managed to understand what the author was saying. I am going to release a series of commentary on the original words of the book. Like this idea? Drop a comment to let me know!
More is coming.
I’ve read your blogs and i feel some desire inside of me to be a better christian and i know that i should be trying to be come a better christian but it feels like theirs some kind of block that won’t go away. No matter how many times I pray and read and try to do right, it doesn’t last and i end feeling like I’m failing or i actually am. I believe in forgiveness and repentance and i know i have a good understanding of these things but even if everyday i pray and ask and receive forgiveness but what about tomorrow what about everyday day until i die its so hard for me to keep my heart in the right place. It scares me because I’ve consciously sinned so many times because of an porn addiction that it doesn’t bother me as much as it should i think my heart has hardened and that I’m gonna to mess up and go to hell. The worst part I’m isolated the church i attend has members that have experience with addiction but there’s no program or ministry its just a group of men with some experiences. I’m 28 years old, I have three brothers two older and one younger. I’ve failed and/or just given up so many times. I’m currently living at home with my parents my is dad is addicted to anything substance that allows him to escape reality and responsibility, my mom is and has always been afraid of everything and she refuses to accept the situation for what it is. I don’t won’t to be in this house anymore but I keep self-sabotaging myself. I read stuff like this and its so frustrating because I don’t want to go to hell and I don’t want to be the person that everyone avoids and can’t be near them because their poison.
Dear Tim, I can see that your heart hasn’t hardened, and I believe God is pleased that you are repenting and praying everyday. Don’t over pressure yourself, because it is about faith, not willpower. You may exercise your willpower to use your faith, but willpower itself cannot defeat temptations.
I understand that you feel isolated in the church. This is a result of the works of the enemies. They have planned and engineered our world so much so that even many churches are walking quite far from the Bible, without realizing it. It is normal to feel isolated when one wants to please God, because most people are walking in the board road, which leads to destruction, or they are kept in the dark because we have the darkest time ever in history right now, and it may get darker.
We have been compartmentalized so much that people don’t sympathize and communicate with each other so well anymore.
I don’t think you are going to Hell if you continue to repent and sincerely wait for God to rescue you. Regarding porn addiction, you have to stop giving yourself negative suggestion, such as “don’t push the button”, “don’t think about the purple elephant”, because by doing so, you are tricking your mind to keep thinking about that object until it becomes so strong and obsessive that it won’t go away. This is how many people remain stuck in some addictions. You have to start believing the purifying and liberating power of God’s words. As you start believing, the impulses and urges will wane. Don’t look at the ground while you are walking on a thin wire thousands of feet above it.
Your parents need you and so do God! We need more people who are as spiritually conscious as you. If you can’t minister to your parents, imagine the bigger problems we would face out there. Many people are living in bondage, and evil people are out there pushing for “drug war” while selling drugs in secret… We need Christian warriors to rise up and get the revival going. There are a lot of things that God requires us to do, such as start interceding for our nations, because some evil people are destroying our nations and pushing for the New World Order as we speak. Children are being abducted and abused in increasing number now. You may think you are weak, but in God’s eyes you are full of spiritual potential. You are just being lied to by the enemy. Satan wants Christians like you and me to think that we don’t matter and that we are still sinners, but truth is we are already new creation in Christ, we just need to believe it to live it.
God’s words are powerful, so start trusting what He says about your situation. For me, I have been reading Psalm lately, and other promises from the Bible. After trying to start my own business for many times and failed, I now rely on God’s promises to prosper me. Yes, it’s that simple. Look at Abraham, and Issac. They didn’t try hard or think about this or that too much, but God prospered them and commended them, but for Jacob, he bargained and thought too much. Of the 3 patriarchs, he was the most busy and smart, but he was the one who got the hardest life. Faith is simply believing in the words of God, so if you sin, repent and believe God forgives you, and stop worrying afterward.
Yes, I understand what you mean by poison from other people. We will never be able to help them if we rely on our own wisdom and power, but God will give you the power and the people as you believe in His promises. I am surrounded by negative people as well, and unbelieving Christians, but the thing is it doesn’t matter what my circumstance is. In the first century, God added people to the churches everyday. God can still change life, but He needs our faith. I know that when I have faith, people will change. Revival starts with me! and so does it start with you.
And please read my article “pray for the children”. It’s an example of people who needs someone like you to help them. In your own eyes, you might be a small potato, but in the eyes of enemies, you are walking hazard, a ticking time bomb. To God, you can do a lot of things if only your eyes are enlightened by His words.
God bless you and may He open your eyes. “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” Ephesians 1:18-19
“Can you surrender worldly entertainment and trust God as the sole provider of joy and peace?”
I have a question. When we “surrender worldly entertainment”, does it pertain to EVERYTHING that is a form of entertainment in the world today or the entertainment that contains corrupt and worldly things in it?
It’s been a question that constantly has been eating away at my mind. I make sure to filter the things I watch on T.V. and am careful to listen to the intentions and lyrics of the music I listen to that aren’t Christian songs, but I wonder if even that is unacceptable?
I’m really confused about this, so I would really appreciate it if you could clear this up for me…
I would also like to ask, since it is so close to Christmas, if watching movies and shows that have Santa Claus in them are unrighteous? I know Santa doesn’t exist and these show are merely for fun and clean enjoyment, but is it still bad considering they make Santa someone very “god-like”?
I worry that I’m either worrying too much, or I’m worrying too little. Please help me out?
I wish you a merry Christmas, though!