It behooves us to make time so we can tarry in the Lord’s presence. We can do that by spending extended time in personal Bible study and prayer before the Lord. These intimate times with God can bring us closer to Him. His mere presence is life-changing.
I thought about this as I was studying the book of Exodus. God called Moses upon a mountain to be alone with Him. Moses was there forty days and forty nights. During that entire time, he neither ate bread nor drank water (see Exodus 34:28)!
Hold on; I am not advocating such a severe fast. In fact, we cannot humanly survive without water for even half that many days. That point alone attests to how supernatural Moses’ time alone with God must have been. Also, remember that Moses was at least 80 years old at the time.
When Moses came down from that mountain, “The skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him” (Exodus 34:30, KJV). This was no minor thing. Moses’ skin was so radiant that when he talked with the people, “he put a veil on his face” (verse 33). Whenever he talked with God he removed that veil.
Doing More to Experience More
So, do you want more than the norm? Perhaps, for instance, you get up each morning and spend 10 minutes in prayer and maybe another 5 minutes in Bible study. Imagine what would happen if for 21 consecutive days you devoted more time to pray and study the Bible. That departure from your normal routine would enable you to experience the Lord’s presence more deeply.
At the last church I pastored, we had a special prayer meeting once a month. We called it our “breakthrough prayer meeting.” This gathering was in addition to our weekly prayer meeting on Friday nights. I asked those who would be participating to fast at least one full day before the meeting. The time I set aside each month to fast and pray prior to our meeting was spiritually invigorating to me. I definitely experienced the Lord’s presence on a much more intimate level.
Not long after Jesus returned to heaven; approximately 120 men and women, including the apostles, gathered together in an upper room. “These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication” (Acts 1:14). They remained together for over a week. Then they experienced the glory of the Lord’s presence. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke with other tongues as the Holy Spirit gave the utterance (Acts 2:4).
I believe many Christians desire a deeper relationship with God. They want to experience more intense levels of being in His presence. God wants to grant the same, but the ball is in their court. Here is you you do it: “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you” (James 4:8).
Copyright © 2022 by Frank King. All rights reserved.