Black Friday

Today is Black Friday.  And while the name comes from retail businesses recognizing that it's the day in the year that they finally see black ink at the bottom of the page, it has also come to have a somewhat dark overtone, hasn't it?  The day after America "pauses to be thankful," millions of people "rush to be greedy." People wait in lines for hours overnight to be the first to push into the local retailer to get the best deal on a flat screen TV to replace the one they got last year.

This rather bleak opening to the "Christmas Season" has sadly spread around the globe like a viral pandemic. It is tragically indicative of the nearly-complete loss of the significance of the birth of Jesus Christ.

This year, I want to be different. Instead of craving more presents, I want to crave more PRESENCE.

When God told Moses in Exodus 33 to lead the children of Israel away from the base of mount Sinai, where He had dictated the Law to Moses, the Lord said, "Go to the land I have promised your fathers...I will send my angel ahead of you, and I will drive out the inhabitants of the land that I have promised to you...but I will not go with you, because if I am with you I will destroy you, because you are a stiff-necked people" (verses 1-3).

The promise of an angel going ahead, and all the enemies being driven out would have sounded pretty good to most all of us...but not Moses!  He said, "Lord, if you will not go with us, we will not leave this place. It is Your presence that makes all the difference!" (verse 16).

As we begin our journey toward Christmas, 2017, let's not go without God's presence. Of course He will be present - He is omnipresent, everywhere at all times. But there is a difference between God being present, and being in God's presence!  

A. W. Tozer wrote: "The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God, and the church is famishing for want of His presence. The instant cure of most of our religious ills would be to enter His Presence in spiritual experience, to become suddenly aware that we are in God and that God is in us. This would lift us out of our pitiful narrowness and cause our hearts to be enlarged. This would burn away the impurities from our lives as the bugs and weeds were burned away by the fire that dwelt in the bush."

This Christmas Season - Crave More Presence!