(Friends: during this series,
the messages may frequently be longer than usual due to the subject matter. Thanks for your patience, and I think
you will find the considerations interesting, and hopefully, helpful in our walk
with the Lord. Glen)
Part 22 – “The Here of God”
“Where is God?” The question can mislead us if we look
for an answer out and away from the place whereupon we presently stand.
Since we “live and
move and have our being” in God, His “Where?” is always here (Acts 17:28). Craning our necks to gaze into the
distance, as it were, hinders us from the glory that exists in our present
locale. As Jacob confessed at
Bethel, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not!”, so are we tempted
to wait for another venue before we open our eyes to see the great fact of our
existence (Genesis 28:18).
The Lord Jesus Christ
exists in places where it seems He could not and should not be. Human wombs, mangers, tables of
sinners, crosses, tombs, and the hearts of trusting souls – all comprise the
“here” of God in ways beyond our understanding and expectation. Thus, the venues, circumstances,
conditions and situations wherein we find ourselves always teem with the dynamic
presence of Christ. We may
recognize the truth only vaguely, and, like Jacob, we may not know it at
all. Nonetheless, the fact remains
that God’s “Where?” is always here.
When considering this
truth not in terms of proximity, but of spiritual reality, an amazing bestowal
of grace awaits our needy hearts.
We need not wait for “the sweet by and by” to relate to God in the
trusting faith that avails itself of the peace and joy resident in the
Christ-graced here and now. Paul
and Silas, for example, “prayed and sang praises unto God” from a prison wherein
their feet were bound in stocks, and their bodies bloodied and beaten by the
cruel lash (Acts 16:25). Our
brethren of old did so not because of their own dedication and discipline (singing in such a circumstance does not
result from mere self-control and restraint), but from the fact that God’s
“here” inhabited their “where.” As
with the three young men of old who met the Lord Jesus in the furnace, so did
Paul and Silas open their eyes in prison to discover the transcendent presence
of God as the great fact of an hour no doubt grievous, but even more, glorious (Daniel 3:25).
Our own “here” may
presently comprise a venue of blessing.
Conversely, it may seem laced with buffeting, or it may appear that
nothing at all of value and interest transpires. Whatever the case, the Word of God calls
us to acknowledge the Christ of God as present and actively engaged in
fulfilling His Father’s purposes and the benefit of our hearts. Our Lord’s “Where?” is here. We can relax our craning necks, replacing
them with the open eyes of faith that “prays and sing praises” to the God who
fills our every “here” with Himself.
“The whole earth is full of
His glory.”
(Isaiah 6:3)
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