HOSTING HIS PRESENCE by Awotiku Akinlayo David

Right from the beginning, the presence the Lord has always comprised of everything about God, all the qualities and characteristics that’s used in describing God: His voice, His Spirit, His nature, His image, His Word, His glory, His face, His love and the likes. From the bible, there are different verses where God’s description seems to sound abnormal to an intellectual diagnosis of man. Example given is Genesis 3:8 – “And they heard the sound of the Lord God WALKING IN THE GARDEN in the cool of the day…,” the question to be considered here is ‘How can a sound be walking?’ Further to this verse is “…and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” Which implies that the walking sound here represented a presence of God.

Several times, we explain the Scripture with human understanding or intellect, we easily get confused and that’s why religions are finding it difficult to believe in trinity or Jesus as the son of God. Looking at Genesis 1:26 – “…let US create man in our image and against our likeness.” Another question to be considered here is ‘How can one person use ‘US’ for Himself, i.e. a plural proverb (US) following a singular noun (IMAGE)? It sounds nonsensical to our normal human thinking. Hebrews 1:3 – “The son is the radiance/brightness of His glory, the express image of Him” (Col.1:15), and also, this Son is the Word (John 1:1). This sounds unrealistic to a natural man’s thinking sense for an image to be a person, a human being. According to the dictionary, we know ‘image’ to be ‘other representation of a real object, a graphic, or a picture.’ It sounds absurd to say this person is an image of someone.

At the same time, how can a human being be the brightness of someone else glory? It is not normal at all, a brightness of something should be abstract i.e. it is something regarded as non-living things. Likewise the same person is the Word of another person. How can someone speak someone out as if we are watching magical movie? The Word should be something heard but not seen, or is there anyone that have seen a word as it was coming out from someone’s mouth? It is unreasonable and abnormal too for such to be real.

Coming back to our topic, ‘Hosting His Presence’ let’s review ‘His presence’ first: God’s presence is alive, active, proactive, productive, lively, joyful and real. His presence is a personality. God’s presence is the reality of God. Everything about God is alive and gives life, both the living and the things that seems abstract or non-living (according to human philosophy). Therefore His presence is life and intensified to us as we grow in Him.

It is impossible to think you are hosting His presence when all about you seems dead, when we are Hosting His presence, we’ll be posting His essence therefore everything about you should be alive, living and active.

The promise to revive us to Him has been from the Old Testament in Hosea 6:2 – “After two days He will revive us (quicken us, give us life); on the third day He will raise us up that we may live before Him.” This is a futuristic prophecy of what God intend doing for us through Jesus. When Jesus came, He did a lot of things for us so that we can get back to becoming like Him as God’s Image, God’s Spirit in us now. The Spirit of God is a powerful representation of His presence and where the Spirit of God is, there is liberty.

Jesus is the express image of God, the word of God and radiance of His glory as we have emphasized earlier, this shows that Jesus is a physical presence of God. Jesus had to leave so that we can be like Him, hosting His presence like He did while He was on earth (Acts 10:38). God desires that we host Him because that was how He first created us, Genesis 2:7 – ‘And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.’ He wants His spirit to be in us but then after Adam’s falling we became dead and the spirit left us, we got corrupted and defiled so much that we became unfit to host His spirit which signifies His presence.

Back in my undergraduate days, anytime my neighbors noticed that I’m tidying up my room, the question that comes from them is “Are you expecting someone?” It doesn’t sound well to host a guest in a dirty and unorganized room so I had to do thorough cleaning of my room for the person to be comfortable when he/she comes. What I’m insinuating here is that: God would have filled us up with His Spirit when He wish but our life is extremely dirty and dead and cannot accommodate the Holiness of the Spirit. So Jesus had to come to do the cleansing and washing of our heart just to prepare us and present us qualified to accommodate the infilling of the Holy Spirit, this He did with His blood, the only blood uncorrupted, blameless without spot or iota of dirt.

Now that the presence is in us through the Holy Spirit, it means we are alive, we became a living soul again, our nature has been possessed by a new being (2Corinthians 5:17), therefore everything about us is exactly God’s.

Hosting God’s presence entails many things, it means your intention has been ruled over by God’s intention, your wisdom has been overshadowed by God’s wisdom, and likewise your will has been overruled by His will. Your image is now Jesus, anyone that sees you now should see Jesus. As we now behold as in a mirror, we don’t see ourselves again but Jesus. When God sees us, He is not seeing us anymore, He is seeing His image – ‘Jesus’. All we speak and do is now revealing Jesus as being the Word we speak. The word we now speak to people is Spirit and life as Jesus said in John 6:63 – ‘…Every word I've spoken to you is a Spirit-word, and so it is life-making (THE MESSAGE). Our lives are now reflecting Christ. The Spirit of God has invaded our life not as an intruder but as a rebuilder of which you invited Him yourself by your own decision.

It is a pity today that many don’t know the efficacy of the Spirit of God in Christians and that’s why our lives are not reflecting Jesus to others as it supposed to. A person that knows the efficacy of hosting God’s presence will get lost in God’s essence. He’ll be mad in God’s essence because he always stand in God’s presence. Selah!

There are many benefits embedded in His presence: If in God’s Presence, there is fullness of joy (Psalms 16:11) it simply means that in your presence, there should be joy around you likewise, when you speak, your words becomes alive and gives joy to a sorrowful heart. Your life should affect and impacts lives, your presence should reveal the glory of the presence of the person you are hosting inside of you. When you appear, the earth should tremble (Psalm 114:7), demons should jump out and flee, also darkness should disappear at that moment since it is an appearance of God’s presence (Psalm 9:11).

Whatever you decree should be established, when you talk, it should carry audacity and authority, when you give judgement of matters, it should be done at that instant because you are hosting the presence of the one that judges the nations (Psalm 9:7-8). In God’s presence, there is glory, majesty, honour, holiness, righteousness, restoration, deliverance and light, at the blaze of this glorious light, the illumination reveals the works of the darkness and destroys it (John 17:5, Jude 24). There is no condemnation (Romans 8:1), no accusation, no defaming charges of any kind can be levelled up against us anymore, even the angels of God can never dare accuse us in God’s presence (2Peter 2:11). May I also inform you that ‘if God is great then you are great’ you are too loaded to be ignored. Know your worth. You are unique on your own, if God cannot be compared with any other god hence you are incomparable!

The essence of God is in the presence of God and it takes those who can stand in His presence to get mad of His essence. This cannot be overemphasized neither can it be over-understood, It’s mysterious that the more you know and understand, the more you want to know and get better and accurate understanding.

When we are hosting His presence, we will behave like a normal Christian should behave, all the attributes of God is now in you, God’s nature is now your nature hence you should behave like God, love others not just in words but in actions, it is the best way of revealing God’s presence in you because God is love, love is His nature. You can’t say you are hosting God when your outward life as Christian does not show any sign of love. Loving others is the only way to show to others that we are living truly in God’s reality and that the presence of God resides in us.

Finally, God’s presence is in us can never leave us again, He has promised us that the Spirit of God will never in any case leave us for once (John 14:16-17). The Holy Spirit is the promise of the father, He is the custodian of God’s presence in us, therefore He desires that we should be conscious of Him always and let Him invade every facets of our lives. He wants the radiance to be obviously visible to everyone around us and to the world.

I love y’all

#ISTANDFORTHETRUTHOFTHEWORDOFGOD#