Let’s Talk About Joy: How to Cultivate Joy in Our Lives: Seeking God’s Presence: Page 2
Now that God has provided the way, how do we find His presence? How do we begin to enjoy the fullness of the presence of God? James 4:8, 10 (AMP) gives some instructions: “Come close to God [with a contrite heart] and He will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; and purify your [unfaithful] hearts, you double-minded people. Humble yourselves [with an attitude of insignificance and repentance] in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you [He will lift you up, He will give you purpose].”
The first instruction here is to simply “come close to God.” We must do the seeking. God has done all He will do without our asking and moving. We must make the first move – we must make a choice to seek God’s presence. Once the choice has been made, there are some other things we must do to find and enjoy God’s presence. This is where many people miss it – they desire to see God, to see His presence – but they don’t take further steps and therefore they never experience the fullness of His presence. Billy Graham was often quoted as saying, “It is strange that we prepare for everything except meeting God.” There must be preparation. There are no shortcuts.
The next step we need to do to enter into the presence of God is to “Wash your hands,… and purify your hearts.” Sin is a separator – a destroyer of relationship and fellowship, especially with God. So God has provided a way for us to cleanse ourselves from sin so that we can come boldly into His presence. Jesus provided a way. Romans 5:18-21 (MSG) says, “Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right. All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can d is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life – a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.”
In order to be in right-standing, fellowship with God, to have a relationship with Him, All we have to so is believe and receive! 1 John 1:9 (AMP) says, “If we [freely] admit that we have sinned and confess our sins, He is faithful and just[true to His own nature and promises] and will forgive our sins (dismiss our lawlessness) and continuously cleanse us from all unrighteousness – everything not in conformity to His will and purpose, thought and action.” Isn’t that good! Did you notice it says He will CONTINOUSLY cleanse us – that means that we are not perfect and mature just because we ask Jesus to be Lord of our lives. This is a relationship, ever changing and growing!
The last instruction there in James is to “Humble yourselves [with an attitude of insignificance and repentance] in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you [He will lift you up, He will give you purpose].” What a beautiful relationship that is! When we come into His presence with humility (the quality of being humble, having a modest or low sense of one’s own importance; meekness – which is one of the fruits of the spirit we will explore later!) He will lift us up! He will give us purpose! I love that! This is why there is fullness of joy in His presence! It is ALWAYS uplifting!
Now that we know what joy is, what some of the purposes and functions of joy are, and how to begin to cultivate this fruit and cause it to grow and produce in our lives, we can begin to reap some of the wonderful benefit of this crucial fruit – overcoming adversity, freedom from chains of unholy bondage, life abundant, and dwelling in God’s presence!