We don’t need to do anything special to initiate a meeting with Him. We simply need to tap into His presence all around us, the presence that constantly flows through the universe giving life and shaping the physical and spiritual spaces we occupy making all things work together for his purpose. (1 Col. 1:15-21).
God has made himself accessible to us right where we are physically and wherever we are at spiritually. This unrestricted access to God is a concept that often disrupts many modern religious orders, including Christianity, that emphasize the performance of certain rituals in specified locations to become worthy of an encounter with God or to receive revelation.
If we still struggle with the basic understanding that we can communicate directly with God without being in any sanctified space today, it was an even harder concept to grasp two thousand years ago when location and order within religion dictated who could have access to God and when. However, in John 4:19-24, Jesus explains to the Samarian Woman how he will destroy this impediment for people experiencing God’s presence. Because of the religious order and understanding of the time, she asks Jesus where the correct location to worship and experience Gods presence is.
“Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people are to worship.” – John 4:20 NIV
Because the woman is from Samaria, a place that often debated with Jerusalem as to where the “right” place to worship and experience God was, the significance of this encounter is easy to see. I don’t think we need to do too much analysis to make an argument like this translate into something we might hear in modern times from Christians as well, trying to prescribe their own way to do the right thing at the right time the right way in order to be a good person and obtain approval. However, Jesus replies to the woman of Samaria and set’s the record straight once and for all.
“Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.” – John 4:21 NIV
This is a foreshadowing of God’s presence being released freely to all after the crucifixion. God did this by sending us the Holy Spirit which he promised after Christ’s death so that the spirit of God may dwell in us forever and not be restricted to an approved venue for only qualified people to enter.
I recently saw the video for the song The Creed by Hillsong United. Although I have heard this song many times, I was taken back by what I felt in viewing footage of the film. The truth is that God’s presence is always all around us and shines through. Although the version of the song in the video is exquisite, and to my knowledge not released as a singular track, the potency of the message is attained by the imagery with the words of song shown over them.
I believe in God the father, I believe in Christ the son, I believe in the Holy Spirit, our God is three in one.
Most of the time these days there is so much emphasis on the narrative or branding of an idea that the point just gets adulterated and the product gets oversold. However, this is not the case here. Shot in the city of Kiev in 2014, there’s no need to add any plot, narrative, or story, to evoke emotion and give us understanding that God is all around us all the time. In this video you see the simplicity and beauty of daily life in motion while the proclamation of The Creed plays over it with no acting or focus on specific emotion. Watching this is a deceptively simple and powerful experience reinforcing the fact that we don’t need to do anything or be anywhere in particular to experience God.
He is all around us making everything happen when it seems like nothing is going on at all.
I love this!