We have missed gathering together. For some of us we have gone to church all our life, missing the occasional one for holidays or sickness.

There are photos of me in white ankle socks, white shirt, brown shorts as a child involved in Sunday school anniversaries, all I have known is church. What happens if the institution of church is not there?

The question to be answered is: Is God any less with us?

No, God is no less with us than he was 3 months ago.

I’m going to quote one verse and then focus on one theme.

 And David became greater and greater, for the LORD, the God of hosts, was with him. 2 Samuel 5:10

The key to David’s kingship is God was with him. The key to work life and home life is God is with us. David said this:

“O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD” Psalm 139:1-4

There is no remote corner of the universe to which God does not have access.  Let David offer you more encouragement.

“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you” Psalm 139:7-12

He is as with you right now as he was with David, his presence surrounds you all of the time.

“‘Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?’ declares the LORD. ‘Do not I fill heaven and earth?’ declares the LORD Jeremiah 23:24

Answer no, answer yes. God is not present in creation as a king or queen in their realm or a captain aboard his ship. He does not act upon the world from a distance but with his whole being he is present powerfully here and everywhere equally.

Yet we can argue, God is more here and less there but He cannot be divided or separated such that one part of His being is here and not there, and another part there and not here. The whole of His being is always everywhere, no less nor more here than there, or there than here. 

J. L. Dagg said this “God is indivisible. We cannot say, that a part of his essence is here, and a part yonder. If this were the mode of God’s omnipresence in universal space, he would be infinitely divided, and only an infinitely small part of him would be present at each place. It would not be the whole deity that takes cognisance of our actions, and listens to our petitions. This notion is unfavourable to piety, and opposed to the true sense of Scripture: ‘The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good'”

Let’s try and put this another way. When God created all things out of nothing, He did not have to “move out of the way” to make room for the world, for people. He is where it is. God is here, He is with you.

My Dad used to use the phrase the unseen guest at our table, yes it’s a little scary when you are five, but it’s true and it gets better.

If God is everywhere present, equally, and said to “indwell” or “abide in” the Christian but not the non-Christian? Paul affirms that you “are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you” Romans 8:9

And again, “if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you” Romans 8:11

Jesus said, “If anyone loves Me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” John 14:23

Paul reminds us, that we are “being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit” Ephesians 2:22

Christ Himself “dwells” in our hearts through faith (Ephesians 3:17)

What is the mystery now disclosed to the saints? It is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” Colossians 3:17

What an immense privilege we have been given, that God now lives in us. It is a little more complicated however, but my aim in writing this was to get you to see you that you have not lost out on God’s presence. Indwelling therefore, is something of a metaphor designed to emphasise the unique personal relationship the Christian has with God, be it the new life, the new power by which obedience is now possible, or whatever. To be “far” from God is not to be spatially at a distance but relationally apart on our part with Him. Thus, drawing “near” to God does not require a journey, only repentance, faith, humility, desire and heart.

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite. Isaiah 57:15

but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. Isaiah 59:2

So at any time,  anywhere we can know this

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Hebrews 10:19-22

This drawing near is not a physical act. It’s not building a tower of Babel by your achievements to get to heaven. It’s not necessarily going to a church building or walking to an altar at the front of a church, it is an invisible act of the heart. You can do it while standing absolutely still, or while lying in a hospital bed or while you sitting on a sofa. It can be done as you walk down a lane, catching a bus or train. Where and when is irrelevant, it’s an open invitation. His desire is that we direct our heart towards Him, to approach Him, to deliberately and purposefully draw near so he can be everything you desire Him to be.