Bill Johnson - Become More Aware of God's Presence in You
In Psalms 27, it says, «One thing I have desired, and that will I seek: that I may dwell in the presence of the Lord, that I may dwell in the house, the temple of God, and behold His beauty.» So think about this one thing I’ve desired. We have a thousand things going on in every one of our lives. If we can reduce it down to the one most important thing, it should be this: there’s one thing that drives me—I want to dwell in the manifest presence of God, and I want to see Him. Anything less is inferior. I remind you, you were born; I was born to host the presence of God.
Yes, good. I repeat it because repetition helps me; I hope it helps you. I repeat it for that reason. It says, «For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.» So that means that when we were created in His image, we were created to live in, dwell in, and cooperate with the manifested presence of the Almighty God. We are actually supposed to be marked by God with us. So when Jesus is revealed in the New Testament, He is revealed as Emmanuel, God with us, the distinguishing mark. In fact, Moses goes through this in the story we’re going to read. He says, «What makes us different from everybody else on the planet is that You’re with us.» In other words, it’s not our giftedness; it’s not our insights. Those things are nice, but they are side issues. The real issue is: who is with you?
I’d like for you to turn in your Bibles, if you would, to Exodus 33, Exodus chapter 33. I’ve told you for the three weeks in December that we went through this story that this is my personal favorite story in the Old Testament that helps me to learn, but my favorite story within that story is what we’re going to read now: Moses' encounter with the Lord and his desire to see the glory. In verse 7 is where we’ll start. We’re going to read verse by verse. I’ll read quite a few, so please, if you don’t have your Bible, sit next to someone who does or crawl over the back of someone in front of you and just breathe heavily into their ear while you’re reading. That was a joke. Just don’t do what I said, please. I’m in enough trouble as it is.
Verse 7: «Moses took his tent, pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of Meeting. And it came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the Tabernacle of Meeting, which was outside the camp.» One thing you will notice is that the more you set your heart to seek the Lord, the more you will have to leave the crowd to do it. I love corporate prayer meetings, but it’s the individual passion that really takes us into our greatest places of breakthrough.
Verse 11: «So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the Tabernacle.» It tells us a lot about Joshua, who was to inherit the role of leadership, taking Israel into their place of fulfillment and promise. He was a man of the presence. I think there’s something about masculinity—if I can just harp on something for just a quick moment—that’s been lost not only in present culture but in church culture. Here we have David, a crazy warrior who was a man of the presence, and now we have Joshua, who was actually a military leader and strategist that took Israel into triumph and victory over multiple nations. He was an extraordinary warrior, but he was, first and foremost, a man of the presence. I don’t mean that to be gender-specific; most of the people who scare me in the world are women anyway—ferocious warriors.
Alright, let’s move on before I get stuck. Verse 12: «Moses said to the Lord: 'See, you say to me, Bring up this people, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, I know you by name, and you have found grace in my sight. Therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in your sight, show me your way that I might know you, that I may find grace in your sight, and consider that this nation is your people.'» I love that particular prayer that Moses prays here, and it’s one I actually learned. I remember when I first saw this: «Show me your ways that I might know you.» I remember as a young man when I first saw that, I thought, «I need to pray that prayer.» So it’s been a repeated part of my own personal journey with the Lord for quite a few years: «Let me know your ways that I might know you.» In Psalms, I believe it says, «Israel was acquainted with the acts of God; Moses was acquainted with His ways.»
Let’s change the analogy. The Scripture gives us, especially the Old Testament, natural illustrations to illustrate spiritual truths. The psalmist says, «I will enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart; I will enter His courts with praise.» So I enter gates; I’m approaching the Lord. I’m coming into the presence of the Lord, into a place of deeper personal encounter and relationship, and where I start is with thankfulness. From thankfulness, I move to praise. What’s the illustration? Thankfulness is our response to the acts of God; praise is our response to His ways. So when it says «Israel was acquainted with the acts of God,» it was describing they had limited themselves to His activity and not the relationship—not the person of who He was and what He was like. In thanksgiving, we give Him thanks because He healed our body or provided for us, but in praise, we honor Him for being the provider. We go into His personhood, His personality, and His nature.
Moses declares in his prayer, «Let me know your ways that I might know you.» Why does a relationship need that revelation of His ways? Because whenever God reveals an aspect of His nature, it always comes with an invitation for encounter. Wow! Abraham had his son Isaac on an altar. He was willing to do whatever God said, and God reveals Himself to him as Jehovah Jireh, the God who provides. Which means what? Now he looks up on the hill, and there’s a ram caught in the thicket. God says, «I am your provider, sacrificially.» Now that I know you’ll obey me, here’s your provision. He looks up, and the Lord reveals Himself to Abraham as the God who provides, not to round out his theology—not so he would have a clearer statement of faith; it was because he needed provision. So God reveals Himself as the provider so that he can then turn and receive, take hold of the provision of the Lord. When God reveals Himself as the healer, He’s not doing it so that we have a full gospel; He’s doing it so that we can be healed. Yes!
So when Moses says, «Let me know your ways; show me what You’re like because I want to know You,» he’s acknowledging the fact that anytime God opens our understanding to what His nature is like, it always comes with the invitation for encounter: taste and see, experience so that your perception changes. Verse 14: «And He said, 'My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.'» Then he said to Him, «If Your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from the people who are on the face of the earth.»
And the Lord said to Moses, «I will also do this thing that you have spoken, for you have found grace in my sight, and I know you by name.» Stop right there for a moment. This is the story where the word comes to Moses and says, «I’m not going.» He said, «I’m going to send an angel with you,» and then he tells them elsewhere in this storyline, «If I go with you, I’ll have to kill everyone because they’re such an obstinate people.» He’s telling Moses, «I’ll send an angel with you.» Now I want you to think about this: Moses says to Him, «If You’re not going, I don’t want to go.» Which means what? The angel of the Lord would be assigned to Moses and to Israel to fulfill all the promises that God gave them. In other words, they will inherit the cities that are already built, the crops that are already planted, the orchards that are already in place. They would come into the full inheritance of all that God promised if they allow the angel to take them, or they can choose the presence and possibly stay in the wilderness.
Wow! «Seek first the kingdom, and all these things will be added.» Sometimes it’s easy to become addicted to the things that are added and lose sight of what God is here for. So Moses is making a value judgment that is really profound because he’s stating, «I would rather be in the wilderness with You than in the promised land with an angel.» That is the mark of understanding purpose. It’s the fact that I would choose the longer journey—the more challenging journey with God—than to have everything paved for me without Him. Wow! It’s a conscious decision that I am here for the relationship. I’m not here just for the fulfillment of my desires, my dreams, my ambitions. I am here for the relationship, and if it costs me a dream, so be it! I lay down the dream, but I’m here for this one thing. Back to Psalms 27: «The one thing I desire, and that will I seek: that I might dwell in the house of the Lord forever; I can behold Your beauty.» It also says in the Psalms, «When You said to my heart, seek My face, my heart said to You, Your face, O Lord, I will seek.»
There’s this theme woven throughout Scripture—the reason for our existence. I believe so much. There are other times I will strongly emphasize our purpose, the impact, the creativity that’s to flow through us, and the entrepreneurial grace that’s supposed to rest on every believer. Those are things that I love to emphasize. But we’ve got to dial it back for a moment here and recognize there’s one thing that is superior to all others. All other issues of the Christian life bow to the one thing: I am a carrier of the presence of God. He has chosen in this time to reveal Himself as Emmanuel, God with us! God with us; that’s the mark—God with us!
So when the Holy Spirit was given to us as a down payment, it was the initial evidence of the most mind-boggling concept, I think possibly in all of Scripture. That’s an extreme statement, but think about this with me: the Bible says we are heirs of God. Yes, the Bible says you inherit God, and just to make it worse on the brain, He inherits us! Ephesians 1: the glory of the riches of His inheritance in the saints—hallelujah! I don’t understand any of it. No, I don’t. I don’t understand it at all. But in some ways, I almost would rather not, because as it is, I’m speechless. I’d be more speechless if I understood it. But we are heirs of God. So the Holy Spirit has been given to me as a down payment of what it will take eternity to discover. It will take eternity to actually fully receive what has been promised as heirs of God.
So the Holy Spirit is the initiation into eternal purpose, eternal design, eternal process. God and Satan are not opposites! That’s right! The war—it’s so funny to hear people talk about this. The war has never been between God and Satan because it wouldn’t be a fight. I mean honestly, it wouldn’t be! Just a breath could destroy the entire demonic kingdom. The demonic kingdom has been allowed to remain because it’s our school for reigning and ruling throughout eternity. Every day of your life, you are being trained through decisions, through strengths of faith and obedience, to learn what it’s going to be like to rule and reign with Him. Without that kind of training, all you’ll be qualified to do is sit on a cloud and play a harp, and that is not God’s design for you! That’s right! Heaven makes this world look pitiful. There is so much purpose and life in everything being done, and your entrance into heaven will be the most satisfying thing because you’ll find out why you were created in the first place. We taste of it here; you discover it there. But it’s the Holy Spirit who trains us.
It’s this relationship with the Spirit of God that makes what the disciples had, within arm’s reach of Jesus, actually look inferior. He indwells. He empowers. He circles. He upholds. He instructs. He imparts. He leads. He led Jesus in Luke 4:1 into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. That doesn’t sound very nice! I thought He was the Comforter. He is; He just plans to make you uncomfortable first! How many of you have seen God moving and it made you feel uncomfortable? Yeah! If it hasn’t, you’ve not really seen a move yet, because it’s intimidating.
So He leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Why would He do that? He only leads us into places where we are equipped and prepared to win! Let me read this interesting verse. I’ll just read it real quickly if you want to write it down. It’s in Psalms 105, but this is just a fascinating verse that I saw a number of years ago that really, really affected me deeply. He says, «He increased His people greatly; they grew in number.» He made those people that increased in number stronger than their enemies, and then He turned the heart of their enemies to hate His people. For me, that’s divine humor. He increases the number of His people; He makes them stronger than the enemy, and then He irritates the enemy enough to attack. Why would He do that? Now, I’m serious, why would He do that? This is Scripture! Why would He take Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, never to fall?
He won’t lead you into a place where you cannot thrive better. See, the reason anxiety and fear are so disturbing is because I forget my tools when I get in the middle of a conflict. I’m anxious—I forget what He trained me for! I forgot the things that He taught me from the last battle that I came out of, with all these weapons and tools and insights and understanding of how He works. Suddenly, I don’t remember one of them! My goodness! Why? Because anxiety and fear have taken their place. Wow! He only leads us into places where we’ve been trained to win. The Scripture says, «I will be led forth with peace,» which for me means I’m not going anywhere peace doesn’t take me!
Jesus leads him into this conflict because in Jesus' yieldedness to the Father, He humiliates the powers of darkness. God can wipe out darkness with a breath; He has chosen to wipe it out through the obedience of those made in His likeness who worship by choice. Jesus, Adam and Eve’s descendants, couldn’t get the victory that God had prepared for them, so Jesus became a man and did it in our place so we would inherit their victory and exercise the triumph that Jesus won. Yes! Every single victory experienced in life was first obtained at the cross and the empty tomb.
Now, one last thought: what did the disciples ask Jesus to teach him to pray? How to pray? The Holy Spirit has been given, and if we’re not careful, we will think He is present merely for the miracles or merely so that we see extraordinary things happen—which nobody in the room likes more than I do! But where my heart has gone to this morning and this week is Romans 8:26, which says we don’t know how to pray as we should. The Holy Spirit has been given to us because we do not know how to pray as we should. So here Jesus is answering the prayer of His disciples 2,000 years later by saying, «Here, He knows how to pray. He dwells in you! He will manifest the cry of my heart in and through you to the degree you yield to the abiding indwelling Holy Spirit, and He will show you what it is like to implement the will of God—the reality of heaven on earth—through prayer!»
Jesus Himself introduced what we call the Lord’s Prayer: «Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come; Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.» The whole plan of God to transform this world into the likeness of that world is initiated by the privilege and the responsibility to pray. And now we’ve been given the one in the universe who knows how to pray, and He’s indwelling! He will teach any person willing to learn. My God! I have learned and am learning that in the measure I am willing to engage with Him with my affection, in that measure I will discover Him.
Now I realize that God sometimes just sovereignly invades a person’s life. He’s done that for every one of us. But there’s an aspect of the kingdom that can only be found through your pursuit of Him. You would say, «Well, Bill, He pursued us; He chose us.» I get that; that’s true. But there’s a Scripture that says, «You draw near to Him, and He will draw near to you.» It’s very clear: you draw near, then He’ll draw near. Why? Because there are certain aspects of life that we ache for that cannot be entrusted to anyone who will not run after Him, fearlessly, recklessly abandoning themselves to this thing that Jesus has made available for every single person who heard the King say, «Follow me,» and we left the boats, the nets, the inheritance, everything else you can put on the list just to be one of those who knew they belonged even when they were growing in their belief.
It’s this Holy Spirit who introduces us and reintroduces us. I think the ability to turn affection towards Him—the ability, from the heart, to engage with Him with a burning heart, maybe a dimly burning wick, maybe a blazing fire—but to engage with Him with a heart of affection is the beginning of our training to rediscover the inheritance of God Himself. Because when you draw near to Him, He draws near to you! There’s an unlimited potential in that moment. «Solid food belongs to those who are full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised or trained to discern good and evil.»
Senses—physical senses: smell, sight, hearing, touch, taste—the senses that we have were actually designed in us to recognize God. I know it sounds mystical. People get angry sometimes for using the word «mystics» because there have been cultic leaders referred to as mystics. There are also wonderful saints of God that have historically been referred to as mystics. It may sound mystical to you, but it’s actually in Hebrews 5. The writer of Hebrews basically said that having your senses trained to discern good and evil is a requirement to be a teacher—for though you ought to have been teachers by now. And then he goes on to describe they don’t have their senses trained—good senses!
It’s in there as an invitation to learn what it means to know God. I’ve only had this happen once in my life, but I look forward to it happening again. Benny and I were driving from Weaverville to Reading in our little Toyota Corolla hatchback, five-speed. We thought we were kings of the entire earth with this brand-new car that had AM/FM and a cassette deck. Yep, and we’re driving from Weaverville to Reading, and we began to just sing in tongues—sing in the Spirit, worship God as were driving: Eric and Brian in the back seat, Leah wasn’t born yet. And we’re just driving to Reading, and all of a sudden, this fragrance filled the car. I thought, «Man, flowers!» So I looked outside, and went, «Oops, it’s November; there are no flowers.»
As we got by the Lewiston exit, this fragrance filled the car. I didn’t want to talk about it because I didn’t want to jinx it, so we just began singing. This is actually how it happened: we’re just driving, and I’m singing, Benny’s singing. I don’t know if she’s experiencing this or not, but I don’t want to mess it up by having a conversation, so we’re just singing, worshiping God, and all of a sudden, I could taste it! It was exactly like granules of sugar put on my tongue. I would taste—we’d sing some more, this fragrance filled the car; we’d sing some more, I’d stop and taste. I don’t know what it means. I don’t ever ask questions like that anymore: «What does this mean?» Because I never got any answers. So it’s better for me just to embrace mystery and go, «This is awesome! What does it mean?» I am clueless, and I like being clueless just to enjoy Jesus!
We got down by Whiskeytown Lake and I said, «Honey, did you smell?» She goes, «Yeah! Did you smell that?» And we just enjoyed this fragrance of the Lord. See, in heaven, everything has fragrance. Everything has sound. Everything has light. There is this intensely glorious harmony and melody woven into everything that exists in heaven. Everything—there’s color, there’s beauty, there’s sound, there’s light, there’s brilliance—there’s everything! Everything has divine purpose. There are colors there that have never even been thought of here; there are sounds there. I think worship leaders, more and more, are going to be hearing glimpses of sounds, melodies there, that God has kept hidden. You could put a computer program together that could discover every possible melody, and God would hide it from that computer because it only exists in His world. Occasionally, people catch a glimpse.
I personally think Handel’s Messiah is one of those pieces. A man who was very obnoxious, very angry, very impatient—not a godly man—was brought a poem by a young poet. He had a soft spot in his heart for young poets. He took this poetry and began to read it; he began to hear sounds. He began to write; he would write non-stop. It was like he was obsessed with completing this project. The woman who cooked meals for him would come in to feed him, and he would turn her away. He went through—I forget how many days it took—where he wrote Handel’s Messiah, this incredible piece of music, lyrics by this young poet, music from this master who tapped into heavenly sounds, and he penned something that is sung by unbelievers around the world! Only Jesus can pull that off!
And when he was done, he was the most godly, gentle, gracious, kind man because he had heard the heavenly sounds, and he wrote them. See, I think it’s the ambition of all our worship teams. We’re learning to hear—learning to hear sounds that maybe nobody has heard before. Some of those are to be recorded here; some are just to be heard and left. Yes! I think whenever Jesus spoke, it says He only said what He heard the Father say. So there were things being spoken in the heavenly realm, and Jesus heard them and spoke them. Constantly, it says people were stunned by the words that came out of His mouth: «We’ve never heard teaching like this before,» they would say, because He was hearing a heavenly sound. When He spoke it, it recalibrated the hearts of the people—all of a sudden, they began to adjust whatever they needed to adjust to make sure they were in line with what God was saying.
Psalms 84: «My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.» I’m to love God with my heart, my soul, my mind. See, the person who has no control over their thoughts has little ability to love God with their mind. The battle over the mind is to be clear enough to love God with your intellect. All the distractions are to keep me from tapping into that creative source, if you will, of God’s heartbeat, of design, of beauty, of wonder, of excellence—all those things that I get to be exposed to intellectually are supposed to be a part of my expression of love. But if I can get filled with fear, worry, anxiety, wondering what this person thinks, wondering what that person thinks, then suddenly, I just became disengaged from my capacity for love.
Sometimes I’ll sit down; I’ll go into my office or at home or whatever, and I’ll just sit in a chair. As best as I know how, I’ll just put every concern, every responsibility, everything—vision, dream—put it all aside and just sit there and say, «Father, I’m here to be loved by You.» I don’t become anxious over what’s happening—what I’m seeing or discerning or feeling. No! If He’s who He says He is, He doesn’t need my cooperation; He just needs my silence! Sometimes we get so anxious trying to measure how well we’re doing. I just sit there. I’ll just say, «Hold all my calls for five minutes.» I sit there with nothing to do, nothing to say, except «God, I know You love me, so I’m going to sit here and just receive Your love.»
After five minutes, I get up—something’s happening in my heart! I hope it’s happening in yours, probably is—probably all of us together! But the Lord is teaching us how to be free in our affection for Him! Paul made this statement: «You are restricted by your affections.» You’re restricted! There’s a restraint on you according to your affection. We were designed to have a heart that actually burns for Him—not to perform for Him! It’s for Him! It’s the wonder of Him; it’s the mystery of Him; it’s the fact that I can know Him and not understand Him. It’s the fact that I can be embraced by Him and live. It’s the fact that the one whose hands are nail-scarred can hold me.
Imagine this: you’re sitting face to face with Jesus, and you look into His eyes. You’re looking into His eyes, and from His eyes come these words: «How joyous are those who love the Lord and bow low before God, ready to obey Him. Your reward will be prosperity, happiness, and well-being; your wife will bless your heart and home; your children will bring you joy as they gather around your table.» All this that I’m reading here is the word of God! It is Him! It’s the person! And when He looks at you in His eyes of love, His word is being declared, prophesied into your soul. I said earlier, it’s not true because it’s in the Bible; it’s in the Bible because it’s true!
There are things that He is speaking, declaring, depositing in us that are like boundaries to property. You buy a piece of property, and there’s a stake here that says, «This is the edge of the property line.» The Bible says, «Don’t move the ancient boundaries.» It’s talking about this realm of God’s dominion. Don’t fudge on the boundaries; don’t make Him smaller than He is, and don’t allow things He doesn’t allow. Are you with me? Leave the boundaries there; you need them! We need them! I need them!
And so here, every time He speaks to us, He’s readjusting my awareness of where life is! Life is inside the boundaries. The reality inside the kingdom is bigger than everything outside the kingdom! Come on! The liberty in here is greater than everything out there combined! Discovering the love of God for me, discovering the love of God for you starts with just surrendering: «I give myself to You completely.» Things start happening! I’ve mentioned this before—I’ll wrap this up. I should wrap this up here soon.
When I go to bed at night, I like to lay there until I become aware of Him. I don’t want to just go to sleep. I practice this many different moments in my day. Years ago, I would shop at a particular store that was a little bit weird, but I really loved the people there. And I would stop before I went into the store. I’d pause for just a moment until I could become aware of Him. Once I become aware of Him, then I go into the store to shop. I don’t want to say He wasn’t with me before, but I do better when I’m aware of Him. I think better; my courage is greater; my faith is stronger if I can just stay kind of connected to the fact that He’s with me. If I just keep that in my burning heart of affection, that’s how I recognize—I just turn my attention towards Him. What happens? I become aware of Him; my heart just begins to burn for Him!
So, I like to go to sleep at night, and that’s what I like to do. I like to take moments where I just become aware of God. Sometimes I have a task that seems just absolutely impossible or something that makes me very nervous or anxious, and I just stop and become aware of Him. It’s God in me that makes this task possible! I had an experience—excuse me; this is a repeat—but I had an experience about two months ago where I woke up one morning, and I felt homesick! I didn’t know why! I felt the weirdest thing—homesick! My wife’s here; I’m at my house! I just felt homesick! It was just weird! It was a weird feeling!
So I thought back, «What am I sensing?» I remembered night after night I had been going to sleep, becoming conscious of Him and burning in my affection for Him. What would happen is I’d wake up to use the restroom or Benny or me—one of us would turn over, and the other would wake up. In that moment, I just immediately turned my heart back to Him. I turned my heart back to Him—turned my heart back! I get up in the morning; I’m already burning in affection for Him. I’m already aware of Him! When I get up, you know? And this particular morning, I woke up, did not think of Him, felt homesick, and realized two days in a row I did not wake up with Him as the first thing on my mind. And I realized such momentum had been created in the previous couple of months that not having that one simple little moment where you wake up conscious of God—not having that—I just felt homesick! And I realized that’s home! He’s home! He’s home!