One of the greatest problems in churches today is that they have built a doctrinal system and interpretation of the Scriptures which puts everything back in an age past or puts everything into the future, until people have consoled themselves for not having much reality with God, by saying: “In the sweet by and by.” If there’s one thing that the Lord ever revealed from the beginning of the Word of God, and Jesus did the same thing when He came, was that He is a God of the present.
When Moses said, “Who shall I say sent me down to Egypt? We must have a name for You,” God said, “Yahweh: I AM, that I AM.” It is hard to interpret it, but it means, “I am the right-now God.” Talk about Him as the Ancient of Days; He is that. Talk about Him as the coming King; He is all of that, but He is the God who delights in manifesting Himself eternally in the present. Right now is the time He wants to be your God.
He doesn’t want to be the God that you reverence in your doctrines and in your creeds. The fundamentalist thinks, “Oh what a wonderful day of miracles,” and would duel to the death for his belief that the Bible is inspired and every word of it true. But that same fundamentalist will cringe and run if you say, “Let’s believe for miracles right now.”
“Oh, that’s past; it’s past.”
What hypocrisy. What hypocrisy to say that he believes the Word of God, which reveals the willingness of God in His unchangeable purpose to bless man and to help him. Unless you believe in something right now, you believe in nothing! How can you believe for the future when you are limited to see what is coming, when you can’t believe for the present? Can we believe for something today? Every day ought to be a day of appropriation. Every day, you ought to say, “What can I lay hold upon from the Lord today?”
One little key would help us more than anything else. Do you believe what the Scriptures say: that He is present with us eternally; He is right with us, a very present help? Where two or three are gathered together, doesn’t He say He is in their midst? When we know that and we don’t sense His presence, it cannot be His fault. We have to practice His presence; we have to develop an awareness of it, and He is here with us now. Let’s let the Lord bless us today, because He is here to bless, and let’s rejoice in Him and love Him.