YL Jami IAS (Retd)
Kushiabill, Dimapur
God is not coming to people who merely seek his benefits. He is coming to people who seek his face in a real sense of life originally. In the Old Testament, when a person refused to show you his face, he was deliberately turning away from you. Ancient orders of the church practiced “Shunning”. We can brag on our accomplishments or we can ignore our inadequacies, but no matter what we do, only repentance will get us anywhere with God.
The only way he will turn his visitation in revival into habitation for life is, if you and I will prepare a place for him with tears and repentance, because then he will no longer be found to wink at our ignorance. He will literally close his eyes and not look at us, lest his godly glance destroy us.
God is tired of screaming instructions at the church; he wants to guide us with his eye. That means we have to be close enough to him to see his face. He is tired of correcting us through public censure. We have sought his hand for too long. We want what he can do for us; we want his blessings, we want the chill and the thrills, we want the fishes and the loaves. Yet we shirk at the high commitment it takes to pursue his face.
If we seek his face, what we get is his favour. We have enjoyed the omnipresence of God, but now we are experiencing brief moments of visitation by his manifest presence. It causes every hair to stand up on end, and it makes demonic forces flee and run.
When the anointing comes, if you are a preacher, you preach better. But when the glory falls, you cannot do anything. You stumble and stutter and just want to get out of the way. When you are a singer and get anointed, you sing better. But when the glory falls, you can barely sing. Why? Because God declared that no flesh is going to glory in his presence. This does not mean that you are a bad person or that you live in sins. It means that you are flesh and blood caught in the very presence of God. Does not his evoke longing memories of what happened at the dedication of Solomon's temple? The priest and minister could not stand to minister. You can be busy being a disciple and doing the work, but miss the worship! Do you really think God needs us to do things for him? Is he not the creator who stepped out on the balcony of heaven and scooped out the seven seas with the palms of his hands? Was it not God who pinched the earth to make the mountains? Then obviously he does not need you to do anything. What he wants is your worship. Jesus told the woman at the well..... “True worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the father seeketh such to worship him”. (John 4:23)
Like countless numbers of pastors, elders and deacons in the church today, the disciples got nervous when faced with such raw hunger for God and were saying, “somebody stop this woman!” But Jesus intervened and said, “No finally somebody is doing something that's right. Don't you dare stop her! “The church does not make room for Mary with alabaster boxes because they make all the rest of us nervous when they begin to dismantle their glory, pride and ego right there “in front of everybody.” The real problem is that our ego and self-centered glory stands out like a flashing beacon in the place of humility.
God is saying to his people, “I will bring you close to me if you will dismantle your glory”. I keep hearing him say, “Dismantle your glory; take your ego apart and lay it aside. I don't care who you are, what you feel, or how important you think you are. I want you, but first dismantle your glory”. Why? Because the burial of man's glory is often the birth of God's glory. God wants you to openly boldly let the world know how much you really love him - even if you have to dismantle your glory right in front of a room full of disdaining disciples.
God does not need your religious service; he wants your worship. And the only worship he can accept is worship that comes from humility. So if you want to see him, you will have to dismantle your glory and bathe his feet in your tears - no matter what you may find there. Honestly, is not that about the only thing your glory is good for? Our righteousness is as filthy rag in his sight. If you want to know why some churches have revival, or why some people have intimacy when multitudes do not; the answer is that, these are people of brokenness. The breaking of your heart arrests the ears and eyes of God, and it begins when your love for him supersedes your fear of what others may think. You cannot seek his face and save your face. The end of your glory, the dismantling, if you please, is the beginning of his glory.
We need to learn how to entertain and welcome the manifested presence of God to such a degree that just the residue of what has gone on among us brings sinners to the point of conviction and conversion instantaneously. But if we are not careful, we are going to let the lamp flicker out. We do not have a lock on God because we are not married to him yet. He is still just looking for a bride without spot or wrinkle, and we need to remember that he already left one bride at the altar and he will have another. We believe that God will literally destroy the church as we know it if he has to, so he can reach the cities. He is not in love with our imperfect versions of his perfect church; he is only out to claim the house that God built. If our foul-smelling, man-made monstrosity stands in the way of what he wants to do, then he will move our junk pile aside to reach the hungry. His heart is to reach the lost, and if he spared not his own son to save the lost, then he would not spare us either. We must move into agreement with what God wants to do. The same Bible you and I carry to church services week after week says, “If we do not praise him, then the rocks will cry out”. If the church would not praise him and obey him, then he will raise up people who will. If we would not sing of God's glory in the streets of the cities, then he will raise up a generation that is non-religious and uninhibited and reveal his glory to them. His problem is that, we suffer from the spiritually fatal disease of reluctance. We are not just hungry enough. We need to seek brokenness and repentance and say by our actions as well as our words, “God, we want you. We do not care if you do anything or not. We are crawling up on the altar. Let your fire of cleansing fall so we can finally see your face”.
Why would we go through all this? There are atleast two reasons we can think of. First of all, the experience of seeing God's glory is life-changing. It is the most habit-forming experience a human being can have, and the only side effect is death to the flesh. The second reason is this: the true purpose of God's presence manifesting in our lives is evangelism. If we can carry a residue of God's glory back into our homes and business, if we can carry even a faint glow of his lingering presence into lukewarm churches, then we would not have to beg people to come to the Lord in repentance. They will run to the altar when his glory breaks their bondage (and they cannot come any other way!) No man comes to the Father any other way except through repentance and salvation through Jesus.
Every other so-called way to salvation bears the mark of a thief and a robber. The Lord knows that we have tried to pave the way for people to come to God through painless, cheap grace and costless revival. But all we wound up with was bargain basement salvation that hardly lasted a week. Why? Because all we gave people was an emotional encounter with man when what they really needed was death encounter with the glory and presence of God himself. From here on, our prayer should be: “Father, we confess that we want to see change in our lives and in our church, so we can bring about change in our city/land. Give us such a heart and passion after you that we may begin to see your glory flow out of us to convict and save the lost. May the faintest shadow of your presence in our lives heal the sick and restore the lame we meet in the streets. Let your presence so saturate us that unsaved guests cannot step into our homes or be around us with unrepentant hearts. May your glory bring conviction in their lives that heads to salvation, not because of the words we say, but because of your presence and power in our hearts.”
Let's create a comfort zone for God and a discomfort zone for man by repentant worship. Our churches are more comfortable for man, plush with padding, than they are comfortable for God, stripped of flesh! As God redefines the church, it is highly likely that the church that emerges from the cloud of his glory, will look very different from what you and I think the church should look like.
This will happen because God is repossessing the church and drawing it close to him.
We need to learn how to handle the holy things of God with greater tenderness and sensitivity. We must remember that “the good” can quickly become the worst enemy of “the best”. If you want God's best, then you will have to sacrifice what you think is good and acceptable. If you and I can find out what is acceptable to him, “the best”, then the promise of visitation becomes real.
