A Sense of the Present God

"And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God and the prisoners heard them." (Acts 16:25)


Wherever faith has been original, wherever is has proved itself to be real, it has invariably had upon it a sense of the "present God." The holy Scriptures possess in marked degree this feeling of actual encounter with a real Person. The men and women of the Bible talked with God. They spoke to Him and heard Him speak in words they could understand. With Him they held person-to-person interaction, and a sense of shining reality is upon their words and deeds.


It was this that filled with abiding wonder the first members of the Church of Christ. The solemn delight which those early disciples knew sprang straight from the conviction that there was One in the midst of them. They knew that the Majesty in the heavens was confronting them on earth: They were in the very presence of God. And the power of that conviction to arrest attention and hold it for a lifetime, to elevate, to transform, to fill with uncontrollable moral happiness, to send men singing to prison and to death, has been one of the wonders of history and a marvel of the world.


Lord, may I respond like Paul and Silas to whatever I will face today, knowing that Your presence is always with me. Amen.


~A. W. Tozer~