The presence of God

As Pentecostals, we are group of Christians that are well known for the hunger and zeal for the presence of God to be manifested among us in our meetings and the community at large. Undoubtedly, these enthusiasm and expectation were the hallmark to the early Pentecostal meeting as transparent in the Azusa Street revival and has became one of the main heritage of the Pentecostal movement worldwide to this day. The pentecostal revival has brought radical changes to the order of Christian worship meetings from being liturgical and predictable to become free-flowing and variable, with much expectation for God's presence to be felt and demonstrated supernaturally.

I myself is growing up in Pentecostal churches this way. Without being really perceptive of or even being able to understand this mindset in light of the Scripture, usually, as honest as we are, we are kind of driven by this hunger for God's presence almost every time we attend prayer meeting, worship services and especially revival meetings. Usually, the "highlight" or the "best" moment of a service would be the "time of worship" and "altar call" as they were. Somehow, when the time of worship is over, the atmosphere became relaxed and emotions are at bay. With this came along the notion of the "time of worship" and the "time for the Word" resulting in the unfortunate division between worship and preaching. Hence, instead of the whole service being the gathering of worship, only the singing/meditation/prayer/waiting on God are considered to be the "worship" time, as opposed to the preaching, announcement, offering collection, etc. This mindset could inevitably entails, to the larger extent, a further division between the sacred and secular and the unfortunate understanding that certain places (such as church "sanctuary") is the locust of God's presence. Thus we, without conscious understanding of the New Covenant's scheme of things, for example said, "Let us come into the house of God (by which we meant, the church building/lot) to worship and seek God's face" as if our churches representing the temple of God as in the ancient Israel.

I would like to argue that for any particular meeting of God's people, as long as God is magnified in our fellowship, be it through prayer, singing praise unto him, preaching of his Word, giving unto the Lord etc, the  whole meeting/event is the corporate worship of God's people unto him. There should be no division between time of worship, time of preaching, etc because the whole thing is our worship unto the Lord. This means that the entire service must be observed with reverence, not just the "worship" part. Moreover, there should be no division between the sacred and the secular either (for example, attending/participating in church activities are considered sacred matters while our daily doings such as family time, our job/carrier, social activities are thought  to be secular). Apostle Paul in Romans 12, are quite clear that our entire life should be presented as offering to the Lord, being our true/spiritual/reasonable worship, thus blurring any distinction between sacred and secular.

As far as the presence of God is concerned, the Scripture as a whole is quite clear that our God is omnipresence. The heavens are his throne and the earth is his footstool. Without denying the testimony of Scripture that God did chooses sometimes to localize his presence dramatically at certain places (Eden, Mount Sinai, Tabernacle, Temple, personal encounter, etc), the basic truth that God is everywhere-present must, I think, governs our understanding at the foundation. If he chooses to reveal his tangible presence to us, we need to understand that it is at his gracious will and not because we can somehow cause his presence to come down. In fact, I think whenever the Spirit of God is convicting our hearts, bringing clarity of God's Word into our understanding, encouraging and comforting our weary soul, God's presence is manifested, just that perhaps not as dramatic as we expect it to be. We will be wise to heed Wayne Grudem's assessment that "one of the Holy Spirit's primary purposes in the new covenant age is to manifest the presence of God, to give indications that make the presence of God known." Thus, whenever the Spirit of God is at work, God's presence is manifested, whether we are conscious of it or not. Still, at the most fundamental level, objectively what brings and enables us to enter God's presence is the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, not what we have or can do, and certainly not the intensity of our singing and music.