Practicing The Presence of God

Daniel Yordy

Practicing the Presence of God

Somehow, I was placed on an email prayer list. Pray for this problem, pray for that problem. Please don't mistake me. Every one of us needs prayer; every one of us has ongoing and very real needs.

But over and over, my spirit says to me as I look across these endless requests: "It is not prayer you need, it is Jesus." I want to holler, "Open your eyes, it is Jesus inside of you that is your salvation. He is life itself. Know Him! My prayer is not worth a hill of beans for you right now. At this moment you need to see Jesus as He fills you right now with all of His glory and power. You need to place yourself right in the center of His light. That's where you are, see yourself there."

One of the most important commandments to us in the New Testament right now is Romans 6: "Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Christ Jesus our Lord."

'To reckon' means to speak, to declare, to call it to be so, to believe it is so, to place it to your own account that it is so. To shout out loud with your voice box: "Everything in me that needed to die is already and totally dead, vanished into the cross of Jesus." And then refuse all evidence that your natural sight wants to throw at you.

But a few weeks back, in a dream, I found myself declaring this truth, "I am alive unto God. I am alive unto God." My spirit declared this over and over. When I awoke, I realized that I had been overlooking the more important second part of this verse.

The cross is our foundation, the base upon which we stand, but the resurrection is our life. Jesus, alive in us, is no longer referenced by the cross. I am alive unto God. Only God can show us what that means by a revelation of His Spirit.

Consider these verses:

Then Moses went up into the mountain, and a cloud covered the mountain. Now the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it . . . The sight of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel. Exodus 25

. . . Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him. So when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. Exodus 34

And it came to pass, when the priests came out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. 1 Kings 8

. . . He took Peter, John, and James and went up on the mountain to pray, as He prayed, the appearance of His face was altered, and his robe became white and glistening . . . and they saw His glory." Luke 9

Every appearance of glory and power in the Old Testament was Jesus. All of it was limited and confined by natural sight and by human inability to believe. What the disciples saw upon the Mount of Transfiguration was also limited by human definition, but the difference was that now the glory and might of God was personal - Jesus.

This same Jesus is my life and He fills me with all of His glory. Not the limited glory of the Old Testament. Jesus stated that John the Baptist was the greatest prophet from Adam until Jesus, but that he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than John the Baptist.

See Him. See Him as He is in you. From the top of your head to the tip of your toes, you are filled with more glory and power than was ever seen in Bible times.

Paul shouted, "WE ARE NOT LIKE MOSES! We do not cover over our glory."

We do not need our bodies healed, we do not need our debts paid, we do not need 'safety' from the coming storm. We NEED our eyes opened, that we might see the glory and the power of the Holy One who fills us with all of His glory. Then, out of seeing Jesus as He is in us, comes all of the things that we need, like a mighty river of life and blessing and favor.

I recently heard a fellow Christian say, "Be careful, if we get to busy and don't have time for chapel, then the devil can (do whatever the devil does)."

This kind of comment is very familiar to me from the past. But I am amazed at how differently I see things now. My first thought was to laugh. Are you kidding me? How can that possibly be? Then I realized that she would not understand if I said anything.

We are filled with all the glory and power and might of all the Holiness and Majesty of God, way beyond anything we read about in the Bible. We are surrounded by God like a mighty fortress wall, He keeps us at all times, nothing can come to us except that which He allows and all of it is for our glory.

The only possible way we can 'see' the devil and sin in that way, as something to be fearful of, is if we cannot see Jesus inside of us.

I am speaking to God's sons: "God, open our eyes, cause us to see this glorious One who fills all of our humanity with His power."

For all of you dear ones who are troubled about 'sin' in your life. For God's sake, get your eyes off of the sin. It is thoroughly nailed to the cross and cannot escape. God does not want your eyes to be on the cross, but on the Savior and the Salvation that fills your being right now.

This is why Jesus said, "In that day you shall know that I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you." The order in which He said it is important.

If I don't know that I, all of me, all of my flesh and sin and humanity and weakness and debt and all of this dying body, all of me, I am in Jesus. If I don't know that, then the rug is jerked out from under my feet and I cannot see HIM.

But the very same Holy One who came upon the Mountain in consuming fire and clouds of darkness so that those people back then were terrified and could not stand before God - that same Holy One fills me, my body, my soul, my mind, my strength, my spirit, every part of my humanity, every part of who and what I am, He fills me with a glory and a fire that so far exceeds what they were capable of seeing back then. How then can I so miss the glory of the Resurrected Christ who fills me that all I can see is 'what the devil might do' or some 'sin' that I refuse to leave upon the cross.

It is wicked to 'weep' over sin. Weeping over sin is more wicked than the sin itself.

See Jesus. First you in Him, and then He in you. Sin is not in that picture, except already dead upon the cross. Jesus is our life; we have no other life. How can we see anything else?

Oh, how I want to grab people and shake them and shout, "The power and majesty and glory and holiness of Almighty God fills you from the top to the bottom, from the inside to the outside. How, how, are your eyes so blind, how are your senses so dull that you cannot see the Fire and Glory that fills you."

Yes, it is a dying body that the One who raised Jesus from the dead fills in His power. Yes, it is a weak human that is the earthen vessel that holds this Holy Treasure. Yes, my life is messy. Yes, when I look in the mirror, I see a very human face. That is the incredible wonder of this mystery. We imagine that we must see an outward glory with our natural eyes to know that we are filled with Christ.

We walk by faith and not by sight. We see Him who is invisible.

. . . that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith - the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1

It is not Jesus up in heaven that we do not see with our natural eyes, it is Jesus inside of us in all of His Ascended glory that we do not see with outward sight. But we see Him by faith and we are filled with a joy that cannot be expressed.

But now is the revelation of Jesus Christ, now we must walk in the knowledge of His Presence, His Parousia, His coming in us as we have never known before.

Practice living as if Jesus in all of His resurrected and ascended glory has returned to earth and now appears in a physical form - you. Practice living in the open consciousness of that reality - because it is true.

If Jesus showed up visibly, we would all fall on our face before His Majesty.

Jesus has shown up in a far greater way than anything we can read about in the Bible, Old Testament or New.He has appeared as you.

Preston Eby pointed out something that I had never considered before. When Jesus appeared after His resurrection to the two who were walking to Emmaus, they did not recognize Him with their natural sight. Though it was Jesus, the physical body He appeared in was structured quite differently from the one they had seen before. More than that, there were NO scars on his hands. They did not recognize Him until He broke the bread, seated across a small table from them. But when He materialized before them in the presence of Thomas, then, for Thomas's sake, He appeared in a body that showed deeply and plainly the scars from the nails. It was a different physical appearance.

And so now, He has appeared in your body, and He has appeared in mine.

Then, He said to Thomas, "Thomas, because you have seen Me (with your natural eyes), you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

Believe what?

Believe that He has appeared in all of His resurrected and ascended glory in us. Jesus is our life.

Christ in us is our hope of glory. Christ, appearing in any form outside of our self can do nothing for us except weep. See Him as He is in you - by faith.

Then all of these many things we so desperately need prayer for will simply vanish from our sight and He will meet them with the favor of His hand that is always flowing out from our bellies.

Practice seeing Him in you. Practice it until you see nothing else.

And here is the truth. There is nothing else. Everything we imagine to be in us that is not Jesus, is just that, our imagination. How very sad if we keep our imagination more vivid before our eyes than the Ascended King who fills us in glory.

See Jesus. See His glory in you.