In the Beauty of Holiness
St. Michael’s Midweek Enrichment Program
Week 1: The Presence of God
Chris Luyt
God is personal, and He is Spirit (John 4:24).
God is not only personal, but He exists in community – a community
we call the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The Trinity are
connected by divine love – a phenomenon by which each gives fully
of themselves to the other in absolute purity of intention and
vulnerability. Absolute, pure divine love administered in infinite and
eternal self-consistency, is what sets God apart from all He has
created. This absolute, pure, infinite, love-driven consistency which
characterizes God’s essence and nature is referred to, by the Bible,
as God’s holiness.
How is God Personal?
Being personal does not make God human, because, of course, God
is not human. Instead, personality is an inherent aspect of our
humanness, rooted in the personalness of God. The Bible explains
this by saying that human beings are created in the image of God
(Gen. 1:26-31).
As a result of being created in God’s image, human beings are selfaware on a level that places them above all other creatures.
Humans have a faculty called a conscience, which, in short is a
consciousness of God’s reality operating in and through them (Rom.
1:20; 1 Pet. 2:19).
Needless to say, we human are hard-wired to relate to God – to the
divine. If we are honest and sensitive enough, we find that we are
intuitively aware of things in nature (creation), beyond the confines
of their surface-material manifestation. We experience this
transcendence, this ‘spiritual enchantment’ in every aspect of
nature – we call it beauty. But we experience it most fully in other
human beings.
God’s personalness forms the basis not only for a fuller, richer
appreciation of life (in its various forms) around us but, ultimately,
for God Himself; who is communicated with, in and through all
things. When our conscious awareness moves beyond the
superficial manifestation of all things around us, when we transcend
‘earthly things’ and set our minds on things above (Col. 3:2-4), we
encounter God in an inexplicable fullness – this is called worship.
What is Spirit?
The Bible associates Spirit with wind, or breath. In short, Spirit is
deep, saturating presence. So saturating that it feeds us and defines
us down to the deepest atomic level. The Bible tells us that all of
nature, all of reality, was brought into being by the power of God’s
word, of His breath, of His Spirit (Gen. 1:1). “When you hide your
face [presence], they [created things] are terrified; when you take
away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send
your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.”
(Ps. 104:29-30). Job speaks for humanity: “The Spirit of God has
made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life” (Job 33:4).
Spirit can also be associated with light. In a sense, spirit is the most
ethereal degree of the material spectrum. It is real, but it cannot be
fully discerned by our five physical senses.
God is the highest degree of being, He is the one who dwells in
unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:15-16; Ps. 104:2). John writes:
“Through Him all things were made; without Him, nothing was
made that has been made. In Him [God] was life, and that life was
the light of men” (John 1:3-4).
(for us, the Bible) is the ultimate yardstick for testing the truth of a
revelation.
The Presence of God
God speaks most clearly to us today through the Bible and through
people who have been called, gifted and consecrated by His Spirit to
teach and guide His people (Acts 17:11).
Because God is so great; because, in His fullness, He exists and operates on
a level that we could not withstand let alone comprehend, God manifests
Himself in lesser forms that we can relate to. In the Old Testament God
was very specific about His presence (1 Sam. 2:27-29).
Some of the things that characterized His presence were: people were
overwhelmed with His appearing (2 Chron. 7:1-3); they experienced fear
and awe (Dan. 10:7); they were asked to remove their shoes so they could
directly touch the presence of God in the ground that had become
consecrated by His appearing (Exodus 3:4-5). Some were so overwhelmed
by God’s appearing that they became physically unconscious and the Holy
Spirit had to speak directly to their spirits through dreams and visions
(Dan. 10:9). Often God sent angels (His special messengers/ ministering
spirits [Heb. 1:14]) to convey His word to people (Judges 6:17-24). There
were times when a fuller, more direct manifestation of His being left a
radiant energy behind (like with Moses’ face [Ex. 33:18-33; 34:29-35]).
God’s radiant energy also had the potential to killed people (Ex. 19:20-24).
However, God has also manifested Himself in more personal and gentler
ways, like for instance as a still small voice to Elijah on Mount Horeb.
The Ultimate Manifestation of God’s Presence comes to us, today,
through Jesus and the Holy Spirit
God is perfectly capable of manifesting Himself in any way in our
present day. However, the Bible warns us against people who claim
to speak on behalf of God and who claim to have dreams and
visions of God’s manifestation (Jeremiah 23:25-32). It is very easy
for a ‘false prophet’ to make absolute claims when he makes them
in God’s name. God makes it very clear in Jeremiah that His word
The heart of truth in the Bible lies in the person of Jesus. We learn about
Jesus through the gospel writings (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) as well
as the other books of the Bible. We also learn about Jesus directly in our
relationship with Him which is facilitated by His Holy Spirit who lives within
us after we have been born again (1 Cor. 2:6-16; Rom. 8:1-27).
Worship and the Presence of God
The Anglican service liturgy begins with the words: “The Lord be [is] with
you”. It is an official acknowledgement that as we gather and worship
together, God is present with us. He is most powerfully present by His Holy
Spirit who indwells us as His children. In Anglican worship, we use various
symbols to remind us of God’s presence – candle light, incense, bells,
colours, gestures, preaching, and the Eucharistic elements of bread, water
and wine. These symbols all speak to the multi-faceted nature of God’s
presence among us.
The Eucharist takes precedence because it is a powerful reminder of the
fact that Jesus is the ultimate manifestation of God among us. These
symbols and the liturgy (set order of service) have often been mistaken to
be ‘dead religious formulas’ or ‘idols’. But, whereas some churches may
have descended into dead orthodoxy, this is simply not true of the church’s
overall intentions or reality. As we continue on our journey into the beauty
of holiness in worship, we will discover wonderful new things about the
age-old traditions and intentions of the church.
Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about
the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out
of his storeroom new treasures as well as old. Matt. 13:52
Personal Reflection
1. How do you experience God’s presence in your life?
2. How has God spoken to you through the Scriptures in your
past?
3. How has God spoken to you in a still small voice in your
past?
4. From your understanding of Scripture, what aspects of
God’s nature have been overemphasized in your life, and
what lesser-emphasized aspects of God’s nature could
benefit you more in your spiritual life?
5. During which parts of a typical church service do you feel
God’s presence is most felt? What gives you this
impression?
6. What parts of a typical church service do you feel God’s
presence is least felt during? What gives you this
impression?
7. What do you feel churches do that limits or quenches God’s
Spirit during worship services?
8. What things in the general life of a church, prevent the Holy
Spirit from being present and operating freely?
9. At St. Michael’s, how could we improve our peoples’
experiences of God’s presence?
10. What other aspects of God’s presence would you like to
explore in this enrichment course?