A Built-up Church Has the Presence of God – God’s Presence is Everything to us

After seeing that God’s desire and His focus today is to build up the church for the preparation and bringing in of the New Jerusalem, we need to continue to see the conditions of a built-up church today as depicted by the conditions of the New Jerusalem.

The church is the miniature of the New Jerusalem today, and the building up of the church as the Body of Christ is the building up of the New Jerusalem. To know what the condition of the church should be, we need to look at the New Jerusalem. Every local church should be a miniature of the New Jerusalem!

When the church is built up, we will see that it has God’s presence, God’s ruling, the flow and supply of God’s life, and God’s light. Just as in the New Jerusalem we see that God and the Lamb are its temple, so in a built-up church today God’s presence is everything to all the saints.

God dwells in the church today, and His presence means everything to us. It’s not about right or wrong, good or bad decisions, but it is about having God’s presence and His blessing in everything we do today in the church.

A Built-up Church has God’s Presence

In Rev. 21:22 we see that there’s no temple in the New Jerusalem, because God and the Lamb are the temple. In the Old Testament the temple was in the center of Jerusalem, and it was the place of God’s presence.

In the church today God’s presence is in the center, in the focus, and when a church is built up it will have God’s presence! God and the Lamb are the center of the church, and God’s presence is everything to us.

In the Old Testament God’s presence was with His people Israel, and Moses asked God to go with them because he treasured God’s presence (Exo. 33:15). Today in the New Testament God’s presence is in the church – God became a man to be God with us (Emmanuel, Matt. 1:23), and as the life-giving Spirit He is with our spirit (2 Tim. 2:22).

When we are built together with all the saints in the church life, we have God’s presence and others see God when they come among us (1 Cor. 14:25). But whenever we are individualistic, we immediately lose God’s presence, and God is not pleased with us.

As we see in Ezek. 48:15, the name of the place where God dwells, the name of the church, is, Jehovah Is There! When people come to the local church, they should sense that God is among us!

God’s Presence is Everything to us

The presence of God means everything to us in our life and work. If we lose God’s presence, we lose everything, but if we have God’s presence, we have everything!

The criterion for every matter in the church life should not be right or wrong, good or bad, or anything else of such sort. God’s presence is the criterion for every matter.

When we fellowship with others and we express our feeling in the Lord’s presence, if the fellowship goes in a different direction than our feeling, we need to simply drop our feeling and go along (as the four living creatures would go along with the Spirit and with one another in Ezek. 1).

Is it us with our own opinion that makes decisions in the church, or is it God’s presence that takes decisions? It’s not a matter of a right decision or a wrong decision; the real question is, Do we have God’s presence? As we express our opinions, as we give some advice, as we say this or that, as we do this or that, do we have God’s presence?

If we seek to touch God’s presence in everything we will see that God will be among us, and His presence will be dear and near to us. But if we criticize others we lose God’s presence. No matter how right we are in criticizing others, we lose God’s presence, and there’s no building.

God doesn’t care how right you are – He cares about your attitude, your condition, your inward being…and if you have God’s presence, you will never criticize or argue. The more you criticize and argue to show how right you are, the more you lose God’s presence.

But the more you humble yourself, treasure God’s presence, and keep the oneness with the saints, the more we have God’s presence.

God’s presence is altogether due to the oneness and harmony among the saints, and in the church today we must have the presence of God!

Lord, we treasure Your presence among us. Your presence makes us distinct from all other people on the earth. Lord, save us from living our life and taking decisions merely according to right or wrong and good or bad. May we treasure Your presence to the extent that Your smile and Your sweet presence is the criterion for everything in our life. Make us persons near to Your heart – make us those according to Your heart that we may have your presence to a full extent!

References and Further Reading

• This sharing is inspired from brother Ed Marks’ speaking in this message and portions in, The Building Work of God (ch. 7), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, ITERO spring 2013 “The Experience, Growth, and Ministry of Life for the Body“, week 7 entitled, Growing unto Maturity to Become the New Jerusalem as the Ultimate Consummation of the Church.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Lord, in Thy presence silent I would be, / That in the inmost I to Thee may come; / I would not in my own way pray to Thee, / But let Thy prayer in me my prayer become.
  # Lord Jesus, I long in Thy presence to live, / From morning to evening my one world Thou art; / O let not my heart be contented or rest / When loving or seeking what with Thee doth part.
  # In the secret of His presence / How my soul delights to hide! / Oh, how precious are the lessons / Which I learn at Jesus’ side!
  # In tenderness He deals with me, / While I stay with joy in His presence; / And He saturates and supplies my soul / With all His precious essence.