Effect of Being in the Lord's Presence

 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 6
He is light, and the moment I draw near I feel the light; it attacks the darkness. One feels this in reading a chapter, or in a meeting, or whenever the soul is near Him. It is the first action, so real and true, and withal giving you such a sense of its being of God, that the conscience derives a cheer from the known fact that God is dealing with it, and this always invigorates the heart. The light exposes the darkness, and shows me how incongruous it is with the Divine presence. But the darkness being denounced, I next come to apprehend what is of God in myself; “He that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God” (John 3:2121But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. (John 3:21)). The work of God in me comes out to my own apprehension clearer and clearer as I am near Him, and this is an action of unqualified delight. I feel I know my relationship before, Him in eternal life in Christ, having through it fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. How happy to feel the shell of nature gone! As Paul says, “I know a man in Christ” (2 Cor. 12:22I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. (2 Corinthians 12:2)). He could not tell anything about the shell. Whether in the body or out, he could not tell; but he knew, oh, how well! how entitled through Christ he was to be in the third heaven. So did the thief, when he got there in company with our Lord.