I still remember my first encounter with God’s tangible Presence resting upon someone. A smiling elderly couple took the empty seats in front of us at a Bible camp meeting. Heaven entered the room with them. I whispered to my husband, “Did you feel that?” Eyes wide, he nodded solemnly. My prayer became, “God, I want to hold Your Presence like that.”
What does it take to carry His Presence so that we impact those around us? In Old Testament times, the priests exclusively carried the Ark of the Covenant, the symbol of God’s Presence. The Lord set higher standards of holiness for them to live by than He did for the general congregation. In our day, all believers are called to be holy priests unto the Lord: “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation …” (1 Peter 2:9).
The priests understood that extreme reverence was necessary in handling the Ark and God’s Presence. When they bore the Ark upon their shoulders, they did not carry other baggage. If we are to carry God’s Presence tangibly with us, we cannot carry baggage either. Envy, unforgiveness, bitterness, criticalness, compromise, and worldly lusts are all baggage that many Christians are so used to carrying that they are not even aware of their burdens. We cannot bear His Presence if we carry these things. God does not tolerate a mixture of the holy and the unholy.
Carrying the Presence requires great humility. Numbers 12:3 tells us that “Moses was very meek, above all men on the face of the earth.” Meekness is an old-time word meaning “humility with strength.”
Moses spent much face-to-face prayer time with God. Consequently, He carried the Glory-Presence: “When he came down from the mount … Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone, … and when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, … the skin of his face shone” (Exodus 34:29, 30).
Moses was unaware of the glory emanating from his person and how it affected others. Similarly, when we continuously bear the Glory-Presence, we probably will not be aware of it either, unless someone tells us or responds to its effects. But carrying the tangible Presence of God will always have far-reaching impact on those around us.
Holiness, extreme reverence, humility, much time spent with the Lord, and leaving our baggage behind – these are the keys to carrying His Presence.
From An Encouraging Word, the weekly devotional of The River Ministries
