THE PRESENT ONE

It has taken me some time to try and understand some basic things about the ‘presence’ of the Lord. Of course it has been many years (my late teens) since I thought of God ‘being up there somewhere’ as well as heaven being ‘out there somewhere.’ In my twenties I started to believe that heaven and hell were not ‘a place’ as much as ‘a person or presence.’

The idea of the duality of present/not present was what initiated my search. When I was convinced that the Lord lives within us when we are ‘born from above’ (John 3) and that their trifold residency is the desire and purpose of ‘God coming to us’ it became clear to me what ‘the Present One’ meant: “If people love me, they will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” (John 14:23) The Lord is present all the time.

I need no special place(s), special music, special building, special bells and smells, special costumes, special priests, special formulas, special seating configurations, special sound systems, special artwork/icons, special offerings, special times, or special anything, though these things are perhaps valuable to some…they are not necessary for The Present One to be present. Jesus prayed, “With me in them and you in me, may they be so perfected in unity that the world will recognize that it was you who sent me and that you have loved them as you have loved me.” (John 17:23) ‘Me in them and you in me’… is the theology for this kind of thinking.

This presence that never leaves us is exciting unless we ignore the presence and live and do what is not pleasing to The Present One. But grace and mercy live where the Lord lives…in us.

“Live on (remain) in my love.” Jesus