It all started with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with
God. We read that they walked with Him in the cool of the day. Sadly, God’s
arch enemy tricked them into thinking they were missing something by being
forbidden to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. (See Related
Posts) The penalty for their indiscretion was banishment from the Garden and
the tree of life. They traded the pleasure of tending trees that would yield
their fruit naturally for ground that would bear thorns and thistles. They
would have to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. Alone.
They didn’t realize it immediately, but perhaps their
greatest loss was the presence of God. This is what God meant when He told them
that they would surely die if they disobeyed Him. Certainly, losing access to
the tree of life meant they would die eventually, but their rebellion caused
death of a more disturbing kind: their close relationship with God died the day
they chose to defy Him. While God did not totally abandon them – He promised a
day of redemption – He would no longer be a friendly presence in their daily
lives.
In the centuries that followed, people forgot the God of the
Garden and became so wicked that God destroyed all but eight souls in a
devastating flood, finding only Noah who truly sought Him. When earth’s
population began to swell again, people tried to manufacture a godlike presence
by building a tower to reach the heavens. Again, God intervened and confused
their language which caused them to disperse into rival clans and nations. None
of them sought His presence. He chose one person to be the father of His chosen
nation: Abram.
God made Himself known personally to Abram, later changing
his name to Abraham, which means father of nations. I already mentioned his
grandson, Jacob/Israel, who only recognized the nearness of the God of his
grandfather after the wrestling match. Little is written about the presence of
God until Jacob’s family was forced by a famine to rely on the wisdom of the
brother they tried to murder: Joseph. He recognized God’s hand in his
two-decade sojourn in Egypt with his rise to power second only to Pharoah
himself. To his repentant brothers he said, “What you meant for evil, God used
for good.”
The record is silent for nearly four hundred years until
Moses comes on the scene. Having become slaves to the Egyptians, the Israelites
were sorely pressed. Like Joseph, Moses was serendipitously propelled to power
in Pharoah’s house, only to lose his temper and murder an Egyptian causing him
to run for his life. It is in the desert of Midian that he encounters the God
of creation who had been mostly forgotten by His people. At the burning bush,
God, who announced Himself as Yahweh, chose to present Himself to Moses in
order to call him for a monumental task: delivering His people from slavery. (Exodus
3)
Yahweh’s presence with Moses was validated in two ways.
First, He spoke directly to Moses and empowered him to do numerous miracles.
Second, Yahweh instructed Moses to construct a special tent where Yahweh would
make His physical presence known. The pillar of fire and smoke signaled His
presence with Israel as they trekked through the desert. It was not a warm
fuzzy presence, as we see in the people’s frightened response at Mount Sinai.
Nevertheless, the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant became symbols of
God’s presence with His people.
Joshua inherited Moses’ mantle and led Israel through the
conquest of the promised land. After Joshua died, Israel’s history reveals on
again, off again knowledge of the presence of Yahweh among them. Many
generations later, when Solomon builds a magnificent temple to replace the
tabernacle, he admits that a stone edifice, no matter how great, cannot contain
the Creator of the universe. Still, Yahweh deigns to occupy Solomon’s temple as
long as the people remain faithful to Him. That doesn’t last very long, sadly.
Yahweh literally withdrew from the temple after countless
warnings and allowed His people to be taken as prisoners to Babylon. Ever
mindful of His promise, He limited their captivity to seventy years, after
which they were allowed to rebuild the temple. Zerubbabel’s temple, a sad
reflection of Solomon’s glorious building, never held quite the status of
former times. Five hundred years later when Israel’s Messiah came, Herod’s
rebuilt temple had size and grandeur, but it didn’t have the shekinah glory of Solomon’s.
Nor did the Jews seem to place much stock in it as God’s dwelling place on
earth. Rather, it had become a marketing tool; a den of thieves, Jesus called
it.
The Jewish leadership did not realize that God’s presence
was again in their midst in the form of Yahweh’s incarnate Son. Isaiah had said
Immanuel, God with us, would come, but they missed His appearance. The angel
had told Matthew to call his son Immanuel. Jesus validated His status through
His teachings and miracles. Still, only a few Jews believed He was who He said
He was. Then, when the time for His sacrificial death came, He told His
disciples that He would be leaving them. They were distraught. Strangely, He
told them it would be to their advantage for Him to leave. He promised to send a
Comforter in His place, the Holy Spirit of God to be not just with them
but in them.
They didn’t really grasp the full meaning of Jesus’ promise
until the Day of Pentecost when the Spirit fell upon them in power. (Acts
2) This represents the greatest miracle of our age. Not only does the
Creator God dwell with us, He lives in us. It gets even better; the Spirit grants
gifts to each believer so that God’s work may be accomplished.
Unfortunately, there are too many believers who are awake and alert times zero concerning
this. They pay little attention to the notion that God lives in them, and many
make no effort to discover what gift He has blessed them with. (See Despising
the Downpayment)
Too many Christians are clueless about God’s presence in
their lives. The
Apostle Paul encourages us to set our minds on things above where Christ
sits on the throne, ruling over His kingdom on earth. Paul
also says that our true hope of glory rests on the truth that Christ is in
us. The miracles of Moses or Elijah or even Jesus pale by comparison with the
miracle of God making His dwelling place in believers. If you are joined with
Christ,
you have resurrection power within you. Why aren’t you doing miracles or at
least recognizing them all around you?
Related Posts: The
Knowledge of Good and Evil; Spiritual
Gifts
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