We are still walking through our journey on Dwelling in the Presence of God. Last time
we considered the need to desire and crave the presence of the Lord and the need to
respond to God’s yearning for intimacy with us. Today we want to look at the steps we
should take in order to dwell in the presence of God. We want to practice the act of
being and abiding in the presence of God.
Like we saw in Episode 56, dwelling in God’s presence means living in the
consciousness of His presence. When we say to live in the consciousness of God’s
presence, it means that we become aware; we become sensitive; we constantly have
Him in our thoughts; we rest in the assurance that God is always with us and we stay
attentive to that fact. We live in the acute awareness that we are never alone. We enjoy
being in His presence and recognize that nothing is more important than being in His
presence.
In Genesis 28:16, after God revealed Himself to Jacob in a vision as he was running
away from His brother Esau, Jacob woke up in the morning and said, the Lord is in this
place and I did not know it. Many of us are in this situation. We are not conscious of the
fact that God is with us. But you have to come to that realization that He is in that place
where you are all the time.
How then do we get ourselves to this place of acute awareness and sensitivity to the
presence of God?
The first step to becoming sensitive to the presence of God is to meditate on those
scriptures that assure us that God is always with us. We saw in the last episode that
some of us are so dejected due to the challenges of life that we just switch off. Some of
us have found substitutes to the real presence of God; while some go off and on –days
and months in fellowship with God and days and months out of fellowship with Him. So
you need to find those scriptures that assure us of God’s presence. I have mentioned
some of them before. In Hebrews 13:5 He says- I will never leave or forsake you. In
Isaiah 41:10–do not fear for I am with you; do not be frightened for I am your God. In
Psalm 46:11-The Lord of Host is with us. In Matthew 28:19-20,- lo, I am with you
always, even to the end of the age. Study and meditate on these scriptures and others
you can look up until your mind recognizes the truth that God is really with you. This
step is important because you cannot dwell in the presence of God if you don’t believe
He is always with you. You need to renew your mind to this fact. When I tell people that
I never invite God to come from Heaven and be with me, they do not understand. But I
have this mindset because I have renewed my mind to the truth that God is always with
me. I never doubt in my mind that God is always with me and I freely converse with Him
anytime I need to. So I don’t find the need to ever invite His presence.
The second step is to practice His presence until it becomes part of our consciousness.
And how do we practice His presence?

We do this by visualizing, imagining that God is right now with us. You can close your
eyes and imagine that He is sitting next to you in your sitting room or in the car while
you are driving or while you are performing your daily activities. And while He is sitting
or standing by your side, you can have a conversation with Him, you can thank Him
about the good things happening in your life; you can share your concerns with Him;
you can ask Him about scriptures you do not understand.
You can practice God’s presence by appreciating the good things around you. By
appreciating the beauty of His creation. By appreciating His provisions and the past
blessings of your life. By appreciating the near accidents that happen to us on a daily
basis. And you should also spend time playing worship songs and worshipping Him
along.
A major part of dwelling in the presence of God is to listen to Him. We listen to God by
studying His Word, meditating on it and sitting still to hear what He wants to tell us.
The most important thing when we are doing these things is to keep your mind stayed
on God. Stay conscious of the fact that someone, and that someone is God is with you.
Remember that Psalm 139 declares that God is everywhere and we all know that.
Everyone has a mental knowledge that God is everywhere. Many people have the belief
that God is far far away in Heaven. But we are talking about you having the awareness
and consciousness that God is with you and lives within you.

No doubt the devil would do everything possible to distract you and keep you busy
through the day so that you never take the time to practice being in the presence of God
because he knows he cant reach you when you are in the presence of God. So you
have to persist until you break through.
This is actually what 1 Thessalonians 5:17 implies when it says pray without ceasing.
Pray without ceasing simply means that we should converse with God all the time. So
we all need to have our daily or routine time of devotion at times convenient to us; but
dwelling in God’s presence is much more than the period we have set out to
communicate with God.
Dwelling in the presence of God is a lifestyle. It should be a way of life that is natural to
you. But before you can form that habit, you need to be intentional about practicing His
presence. If you continue to resist the devil and keep being diligent about practicing His
presence, it would gradually become a lifestyle to dwell and abide in His presence.
The Holy Spirit helps us to experience the joy of dwelling in the presence of God. The
Holy Spirit does not visit us from time to time. He is resident in our hearts. John 14:26
states that the Holy Spirit is our helper, teacher and guide. Paul prayed in his 2 nd letter
to the Corinthians 13:14 that the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and
the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us always. We dwell in the presence of God
when we fellowship with the Holy Spirit by intentionally engaging with Him.

When we dwell in the presence of God we experience joy, peace and contentment. But
let me caution that some people claim to be in the presence of God for hours only to
petition for their needs and curse their purported enemies. But their minds are not
stayed on God but on their challenges, bitterness and condemnation. I do not advocate
this type of dwelling in the presence of God because it does not bring peace and joy to
you, neither does it lead to the type of intimacy with God that He craves from us.
Again to successfully dwell in the presence of God, we need to eliminate those things
that turn our hearts from God. You need to ask yourself the things you indulge in that
hinder your resolve to dwell in the presence of God. For instance if you spend hours
watching tv or movies that do not in any way direct your heart to God, it would be
difficult to practice the presence of God. Practicing the presence of God demands you
to consciously direct your thought towards God.
No doubt, this is sounding difficult but once you form the habit, you would start enjoying
dwelling in the presence of God. I keep my heart stayed on God by listening to audio
teachings through the day and I enjoy them so much that watching movies now seem to
be a waste of time.