20 June

Spending time in the presence of God is the most important activity of your life. You need God’s presence in your life more than you need anything else. But where do you find the presence of God?

God is always present with his people today by his Holy Spirit. When you pray, ‘Come, Holy Spirit,’ you are asking for an increased sense of the presence of God. There are times in the New Testament when the Holy Spirit filled a gathering of people sovereignly and spontaneously (Acts 2:2; 10:44). There are other times when the disciples prayed for the Holy Spirit: ‘After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit’ (4:31). In the Old Testament passage for today we read how ‘the glory of the Lord filled his temple’ (1 Kings 8:11).

Do not assume that if God is with you then you will not encounter any significant opposition. These incidents remind us that actually the opposite is often the case. Where God is at work, the enemy tries to stir up opposition and difficulty

Your happiness does not depend on what is happening to you. There is deep joy that came from God’s presence. In the middle of all the opposition and after they had been forced to leave Antioch, they went on to the next town, Iconium, ‘brimming with joy and the Holy Spirit, two happy disciples’ (Acts 13:52, MSG).

The Holy Spirit will give you boldness in spite of opposition. In Antioch, ‘Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: “We had to speak the word of God to you first”’ (v.46). In Iconium, ‘Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord’ (14:3). In spite of opposition and ‘a plot afoot’ (v.5) they ‘continued to preach the good news’ (v.7).

Why in the world would you not want to spend time with God? We spend hours on social media, watching TV or on our phones. As Joyce Meyer writes, ‘We seem to have no problem investing our time in those pursuits. The truth is this: The devil fights us more in the area of our spending time with God than he does in any other area of our Christian lives. In fact, Satan would much prefer that we get involved in all kinds of religious activity rather than spend time with the Lord.’

When we pray, ‘Come, Holy Spirit,’ we are praying for a greatly increased sense of the presence of God to come among us. This is what we so often experience when we pray that prayer.

Although God is present everywhere, we do not always sense his presence. Surely, what is being described here is a greatly increased sense of the presence of God. This is what Solomon was describing when he said, ‘I’ve built this splendid Temple, O God, to mark your invisible presence forever’ (v.13, MSG).

There can be particular moments when we experience God’s presence when we are with others, but you can also experience God’s presence as you spend time with him by yourself.

You don’t need to be legalistic about it, but a regular time with God helps. As you read the Bible, as you talk to your Father in prayer, as sometimes you listen to Christian music or just sit in silence, you begin to experience God’s presence. Indeed, sometimes the prayer ‘Come Holy Spirit’ can be answered with total peace, calm and stillness.