Have you ever come to a place and time in your life where you
longed for God's presence but somehow his presence remains to be a mental
memory instead of an experiential reality? You go to church but church becomes
a burden. You want to fast and pray but at the end of your fasting and
prayer, all you get is a sense of burden and confusion. You try to share
the gospel but there is no zeal. You preach your sermons but they are no
longer touching the lives of those who come to listen. You want to be a
good person, a loving person, but time and again you end of hurting the very
people who love you. Your family, friendships, and fellowship with others
continue to suffer. It has been so long that you really remember God
answering your prayers. You experience this dryness but somehow fail to
put your finger on the real cause of this dryness. Even when you do your
personal devotion, there is no refreshing from the Lord.
Or, have you considered the life and ministry of others who
were once full of God's presence and their ministry touched the lives of
countless people? You loved their sermons; you wanted to be in the company of
their group, you wanted to read their books and travel to attend their seminars
and conferences. You wanted them to lay their hands on you and pray a prayer of
blessing upon you. They were your spiritual heroes. But lately,
their sermons become dry, their tone is filled with self-righteousness, there
is no moister in the air when they preach, there is no sense of God's presence in their seminars and conferences. All they talk about is
what and how much they have achieved and done in this world. As they
minister, preach and teach, you can see the artistic refinement instead of
spiritual unction and personal touch; their interest has shifted from helping
people to helping themselves. You go home after seeing, meeting and attending their services and wonder "what is missing?"
Probably, the biggest thing missing from your life or from
the lives of those ministers you respected might be the very presence of God.
The writer of Hebrews in 12:14-17 and 13:1-5 gives us three primary reasons why
someone loses God's presence: The passage makes it explicitly clear
that without holiness no one can see God. The three things he lists
appear to be the most destructive in causing the loss of holiness in one's life and ministry.
1. Root of Bitterness: The writer
says "make every effort to live in peace with all men". However, there are times when we really want to live in peace with all men but others
don't want to live in peace with us. They take advantage of our sincere
desire to live in peace. They take advantage of our sincere desire for
friendship. They purposely deceive us and harm us. They
become jealous of our success and devise plans to pull us down. They break
promises and betray us and in return accuse us of doing that. We become
the innocent victims of their wickedness. When such things happen to us,
we start developing a sense of victimization. The pain becomes so
unbearable that we start harboring a desire to take revenge. But because they
are so strong and cleaver, neither fearing man or God, they use corrupt means to justify themselves in the eyes of all men and heave
more abuse upon us. We feel helpless and powerless to defend ourselves; and it is when bitterness begins to take root in us. Once this root of
bitterness finds fertile soil of vindictiveness in our hearts, soon it defiles
everything and we lose the holiness that God demanded from us. Once we
lose the holiness of loving each other and are filled with bitterness; it soon
becomes hate. When our hearts are filled with bitterness and hate, we
start walking in darkness. When we walk in darkness, we lose
fellowship with one another and also with God. The Holy Spirit no longer
finds place in our hearts and our personal life and ministry suffer. We
long for God's presence but he is nowhere to be found.
2. Sexual Immorality: The writer of Hebrews
compares sexual desire with Esau's hunger. A sexually immoral person is
like Esau who forfeited his birthright for a bowl of soup because he could not
control his natural hunger. Similarly, sexual desire is a natural desire
and God has ordained ways to satisfy it. In 13:4, the writer says
"marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure".
This is not a premarital counseling (it should apply to that) in which
the bride and groom should keep pure until marriage; it is after marriage that
the marriage bed must be kept pure and there should be no adultery.
Rebellion and unfaithfulness to God in the Bible is always compared with
sexual immorality and marital unfaithfulness. It is a sin primarily done
against oneself. Paul says "there should be no hint of sexual
immorality among you" because once there is sexual immorality in one's
life, there cannot be God's presence there. Just like the root of
bitterness, sexual sins defile us completely and God's presence cannot be
there. Loss of wisdom and purpose are some of the early signs of this sin
in one's life. Esau wept bitterly for his birthright, but he could not
get back what he had lost in the heat of his passion of satisfying his natural hunger
pangs; and the same thing can happen to those who commit sexual sin; they may
shed tears of sorrow and repentance but the damage and loss might not be
repaired for the rest of their life. Therefore, we must keep watch over
our souls so that we do not come to a place like Esau's in shedding our tears
for the loss of God's blessing and presence from our lives and ministries.
3. Love of Money: Heb. 13:5 says
"keep your lives free from the love of money" and Paul says
"love of money is the root of all evil" (1 Tim. 6:10). Money is
needed to meet the needs in our lives but the danger to fall in love with the
money is as great as falling in sexual sin or the sins of bitterness. When we
love money, we start using godliness as a means of financial gain, we start
impressing people, we start exaggerating and fabricating things we do for the
kingdom of God. We start whitewashing the truth and build our lives and
ministries on lies and deception. God is holy and there is no way we can go
on fooling God and soon, our lives start to manifest human pride, arrogance and
self-promotion to keep people and money coming toward us. But, inwardly,
a sense of emptiness begins to grow, our taste buds begin to change, our
relationships begin to suffer. When we love money so much, it is possible
to gain it. But sadly, either it departs from us soon or even if it
remains, it does not satisfy our inner longings. As Christians,
we are made to enjoy God's presence in secret places but for those who love
money, they become empty in the inside but pretend to be full in the outside
and that is why you see no presence of God either in their personal lives or in
their public ministries.
So, if you have lost holiness in your life through
bitterness, sexual sin or love of money; apart from resisting the sin at the
point of shedding of blood (Heb. 12:4), there is no easy way of regaining the lost presence of God. If it was in the Old Testament, there would be no hope.
But the writer of Hebrews says that we have come to a new mountain, the
Jesus who is the mediator of new covenant and therefore, under the foot of
the cross, there is hope for us. But whether you can continue to be
effective and fruitful as you were or could have been before you committed those sins is still doubtful; it
will depend on the kind of repentance you have. Justifying your sins is a
sure of way loosing God's presence forever.
Those of you who have been able to live in love instead of
bitterness, in sexual purity instead of sexual immorality, in self-sacrifice
instead of loving money; the warnings remain as fresh as ever because your
present spiritual status is not a guarantee that you will not fall in any of
these dangers.
Therefore, let us continue to forgive those who hurt us.
Let us keep our marriage bed pure. Let us love God instead of
loving money. Once we maintain holiness in these areas of our lives, we
will continue to enjoy God's presence in our private lives and also be channels
of God's blessings to those we minister through our public lives.
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