God's Presence - Wonderfully Real

"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled" (Matthew 5:6)

There are qualities in God that can never be explained to the intellect and can only be known by the heart, the innermost being. That is why I say that I do believe in feeling.

I believe in what the old writers called religious affection - and we have so little of it because we have not laid the groundwork for it. The groundwork is repentance and obedience and separation and holy living!

I am confident that whenever this groundwork is laid, there will come to us this sense of the other-worldly Presence of God and it will become wonderfully, wonderfully real.

The deeper life is a continual discovery of how
 fully Jesus satisfies the deep yearnings of our hearts.

Do we long to be holy? The indwelling Christ
offers Himself to us as our holiness!

Do we long to know our Father, God? Christ
is the Revealer of the Father!

Do we long for power that enables a fruitful
 ministry? Christ, by His Holy Spirit, is that
power!

~A. W. Tozer~

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The Mysterious Presence

"My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest" (Exodus 33:14)

Serious, honest persons have turned away from the whole idea of holiness because of those who have claimed it and then lived selfish and conceited lives.

But, brethren, we are still under the holy authority of the apostolic command. Men of God have reminded us in the Word that God does ask us and expect us to be holy men and women of God, because we are the children of God, who is holy. The doctrine of holiness may have been badly and often wounded - but the provision of God by His pure and gentle and loving Spirit is still the positive answer for those who hunger and thirst for a life and spirit well-pleasing to God.

When a good man with this special quality and mysterious Presence is morally right and walking in all the holy ways of God and carries upon himself without even knowing it the fragrance of a kingdom that is supreme above the kingdoms of this world, I am ready to accept that as being of God and from God!

This is the true divine order: first, reconciliation, then holiness. It is required of those who have been redeemed at such cost and brought into this place of privilege, that they should be holy even as He is holy.

~A. W. Tozer~