Time in the Lord's presence is time to love Him!

In my own life, my time with the Lord every day, throughout the day, has become time to literally feel and experience the Lord's love on my body and in my body.

Yes, I know it sounds strange to us who would rather experience these things very rationally and here in our heads!

It has also become my time to simply tell the Lord how much I love Him.

I understand so well why the Bible in so many passages describes our relationship with the Lord in terms of a marriage and as an intimate love relationship.

Now think, for example, of one of my beloved Psalms, namely Psalm 18.

“I love you very much, Lord, my strength. You are my rock, my refuge and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and strong deliverer, my safe fortress.”

And then I hear the psalmist singing there in verse 7 and onwards:

“In my distress I call to you, O Lord, yes, I cry for help to you, my God.

From his palace, he hears my cry. I call to him for help, and he listens to me.”

Then there is the well-known Psalm 23.

Listen to see if you also hear this in the words of this psalm. I am quoting from the MESSAGE translation.

“The Lord takes care of me like a shepherd who looks after his sheep; I need nothing more.

He gives me the very best of everything: food, security, and peace.

Because the Lord is with me, I do not worry.

When I become discouraged, He makes me see life differently again.

3He gives me the strength to live every day right.

Like a good guide, He leads me every day to live according to His will.

Everyone in my life can see how important God is.

Even when life becomes so dark for me that I do not know which way to turn, I will not be afraid that problems will overtake me, because You are always with me.

It comforts me that You guide and protect me. You make me feel safe.

Like a host, You only set before me the best of life; those who do not live near You can only look on in embarrassment.

You treat me like a special guest; I enjoy everything in abundance.

You will be good to me and love me as long as I live; I will live near You until the day I die.”

See? I told you that our time and conversations with the Lord also become our time to feel the Lord’s love in our bodies and not just experience it as something rational!

Therefore, it should not surprise you that the most important of all the commandments and what God requires of His people is described as love.

Thus, we read in Matthew 22:36 to 40 the following:

“Master,” he asked, “which is the greatest commandment in the law?”

Jesus answered him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul’ and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Our love for the Lord and our love for our neighbor will drive us to Him, rather than it being just another job or discipline in our lives. After all, being focused and aware of the Lord and His presence in our lives is the heart of our daily relationship with Him, rather than anything else. We do it and want to do it because we love Him.

So many times, as followers of Jesus, we try to learn something or to build a discipline into our lives that can improve our relationship with the Lord. Only to then eventually discover again how that discipline has just become this “job” in our lives and is no longer something that happens as normally as breathing in our lives.

God’s heart for us is that we will learn that spiritual breathing simply means what Jesus tells us here in Matt. 22: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matt. 22:37)

Today, I want to share with you a fifth tip that has helped me to remain constantly aware of the Lord's presence in my own life.

Don't judge yourself

Brother Lawrence taught me this. He taught me that when my thoughts start to wander and I sometimes completely forget that the Lord Himself is with me, I will not begin to feel guilty or scold myself about it.

No, he taught me to be gentle with myself about this. After all, I am busy learning and practicing how to be more and more aware that the Lord is always and constantly in and with me.

He also taught me how to just calmly return to my conversation with the Lord at such times and not immediately feel guilty or frustrated when this happens. Wanting to punish myself or feel guilty about this all the time serves no constructive purpose.

After all, the truth is that the Lord Himself does not judge me about this. Rather, through His Spirit in me, He is busy teaching me to talk to Him all the time and to be aware of Him.

After all, this is what the Bible says in many places about the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of God's children.

Just the other day, I was reading Romans 8 again about the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of God's children.

Isn't it remarkable that this passage on this subject begins precisely as follows:

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Do you hear? So stop trying to punish yourself all the time if you don't always do everything perfectly! Be merciful to yourself! God's grace is sufficient for you!

The Lord will never leave you or forsake you!

Therefore, says Rom. 8, it is precisely the work of God's Spirit in us to remind us that the Great God is our God and Father.

Hear it when it says:

“But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, because the Spirit of God dwells in you.

If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. Because Christ is in you, the Spirit gives life through righteousness, even though the body is dead because of sin. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.

For the Spirit you received does not make you slaves to fear again; instead, you received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry out, “Abba!” This means Father.

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if we are children, then we are heirs. If we are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if we share in his sufferings, we will also share in his glory.”

So, relax! Just start over every time!

I am sharing with you practical tips from my own life and experience, how the Lord has taught me from His Word to become more aware of the Lord's presence in my own life. Here is a fourth tip in this regard.

Speak and pray regularly in tongues

Yes, I know! Most of us come from a religious background in which “speaking in tongues” is strange, unknown, and a bit of a gimmick! Especially if we come from a typical Afrikaans Reformed background!

Yet we only need to start to examine the Lord's Word on this in a relaxed manner to discover in quite a few places that “speaking in tongues” is not a Pentecostal or charismatic thing, but that it is part of what God's Spirit also wants to do in your and my life and wants to teach us.

In my own life, through the Lord's grace, I discovered how the Lord's Spirit "taught me to speak in tongues".

I say this specifically because it did not come easily and automatically. I had to learn to “make my tongue available” as it were, to discover and experience how my tongue, first just sounds, and now a heavenly language, began to speak like a baby learning to speak!

Nowadays, it is even an important key for me to learn to be more aware of the Lord’s presence in my life.

The apostle Paul said that he spoke in tongues more than anyone else in the Corinthian congregation. (1 Cor. 14:18). That is why he also encouraged every believer to pray in tongues. (Eph. 6:18)

This means that speaking in tongues and praying in tongues also became part of his normal spiritual life and time with the Lord, throughout the day, from when he woke up, working, or whatever he was doing!

The remarkable thing about speaking in tongues is that our logical mind is not normally involved in it or served by it.

Yet the Holy Spirit can also speak to His congregation through the gift of speaking in tongues in public, within the assembly of believers, through this gift. But then the Lord will also use the gift of interpretation of tongues to give those believers a divine interpretation of what was said. (1 Cor. 14:13)

Be that as it may, speaking in tongues is a particularly important gift, because the Bible says our spirit is built up by it while we speak or pray in tongues. (1 Cor. 14:4)

As this building up takes place, it helps us to be more aware of the Lord's constant presence in and with us.

Here is a third thing I have learned about how to experience more of the Lord’s presence in my own life every day.

Spend time in God’s Word

Remind yourself in your “quiet time” with the Lord that the Bible in your hands is, in every sense of the word, “His Word” and that He, as the living God, wants to speak to you personally through what you are going to read in it today.

There are so many passages in the Bible that remind you of this. Just think of passages like the following:

2 Tim. 3:14 to 17

“But you, continue in what you have learned and have been assured of, knowing who you have been taught by, and that from childhood you have known the holy Scriptures, which can make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired of God and profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Heb. 4:12

“The word of God is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

Then there is even an entire psalm that reminds you of this, namely Ps. 119. Think of verses like:

Ps. 119:1 to 5

“Blessed is those who walk blamelessly, who walk according to the word of the Lord.

Blessed is those who keep his statutes, who do his will with all their heart, who do no injustice, but walk in his ways.

You have given your commandments to be fully carried out.

Oh, that I might walk uprightly and keep your precepts!”

Ps. 119:105.

“Your word is a lamp to my feet, a light to my path.”

Rom. 12:2

Spending time in God’s Word is the Lord’s way of “renewing the mind” (Rom. 12:2).

Jas. 1:21,22

“Therefore, you should put away all moral filth and unrighteousness that so abundantly exists and humbly accept the word that God has planted in you, for this word can save you. You must do what the word says and not just hear it, deceiving yourselves.”

If it says, “the word can save you”, it does not mean “being saved and going to heaven”. Rather, it is about the Lord being able to change and heal our thoughts, minds, wills, and emotions through His Word, by reading and obeying it.

The more we practice this daily, the easier it will become to keep our attention focused on the Lord and to be sensitive to the voice of His Spirit in our lives.

So, the things of this world will not influence our thinking as easily as they did in the past.