The Awesomeness Of God’s Presence

Last night we lost power during Tropical Storm Ida, right in the middle of Monday Night Football! So I did what any good husband would do; I immediately set up the generator so I could plug in our refrigerator because I had no idea how long the power would be out. Oh yeah, and I plugged in the television, surround sound, and my TiVo box, never mind I almost broke my television by dropping it. Hey, why not use the electrical power…it was available after all?!

When the power came back on I realized how convenient it is to have power from the electric company. Everything had power! Of course I can hire an electrician to wire my power box to allow me to hook my generator directly to it and run most things other than the AC and washer machine, but to have unlimited power is to have real power. Not too mention I don’t have to fill the generator with fuel (and bring back not so fond memories of me as a junior enlisted soldier on maneuvers).

That got me to thinking about spiritual power. I realized that when I do things on my own, I’m using generator power. It can be sufficient to accomplish what I want, but inevitably I will wear out. Now if I am relying on the heavenly source of Holy Spirit power, then my strength can be renewed as needed. Jesus promises:

    “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” (John 14:16, 26)

Did catch what our Lord called the Holy Spirit? He called Him our “Helper.” The Greek noun for “helper” is parakletos and it means “advocate, counselor, intercessor, one who encourages and comforts.” It is from where we get our English word paralegal.

Could you use some spiritual encouragement today? How about some spiritual comfort? Do you have plenty of that?

We run on empty spiritual tanks because we do not tap into the source of our spiritual power, encouragement, and comfort…the Holy Spirit Himself, the third person in the Trinity. He is the One Jesus told us to rely upon. He is the Counselor of whom Isaiah spoke in chapter 9, verse 6.

When we are visited by the presence of the Holy Spirit, when we become acutely aware of Him within and about us, it is almost hard to move. I have experienced times when I was so aware of His presence that I literally did not know what to do with myself. Thankfully I had enough sense to just let Him move. Leonard Ravenhill, the great revivalist, wrote:

    “The awesomeness of God’s presence…The awesomeness of God’s majesty…We’ve had meetings, in the last month particularly, where I would sit down at the end of the meeting. I didn’t know what to do with it, and the pastor said, ‘Well, I can’t handle a meeting like this, what do you do?’ The invasion of God’s power was so awesome that there was no way that you could handle it, so you just let the meeting ride itself out. We were having meetings five hours long, beginning at seven at night and finishing at midnight. College students came, and university people, and business people. When God comes, our social distinctions don’t matter, our intellectual distinctions don’t matter. There is an overwhelming sense that God is dealing, not with my intellect, not with my body, not with my emotions so much as with the inner man… the inner being… the inner temple which He wants to indwell.”

What is in your inner temple? Do you have the overwhelming sense that God is dealing with your inner man? Do you want to see real revival come? Then let the Holy Spirit have His way with man. Jesus taught on His last night:

    “Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.” (John 16:7-15)

Our Lord and Savior tells us that the Holy Spirit is our advantage. He will convict us of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Could not America use much conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment? Does not American Christendom need such conviction? Does not Dave Jeffers need such conviction?

Dare I stand in the awesomeness of God’s presence?

I dare not…

In Christ
Dave
Ps. 37:4

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    Copyright © 2009 David Jeffers

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