Do you actually have faith experiences?

A while ago I got some questions from someone; the first is here discussed. The other is about having experiences of faith. From the question I take two points.
One point is that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ brings with it a very basic emotion, which is joy and gladness. Then you can experience that the Lord is close to you.
As a second point, we will address the phrase "the presence or nearness of God. It is a Biblical concept, but is often used in the wrong way.

The questioner's text

The questioner explained his question about faith experience at length. From that the following quote.

Inner experience of faith: joy

First of all, then, the experiences of faith. The apostle Peter wrote beautifully about this in his first letter.

Actually, the text speaks for itself; it is plain language. But still a brief explanation because, what he writes here, we may also see as "the core of the Christian life.

• It refers to the cause and source of our salvation: God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.
• Our life here on earth is placed in the perspective of life in the hereafter. That is the inheritance we will inherit with Christ. In that future glory we rejoice.
• But life down here is not simple; there are sad circumstances, things that test faith. That should not take away the joy of faith. We cling to faith so that it grows stronger and the joy and gladness remain.
• The believer rejoices in two things
  • in the salvation that will soon be revealed after this life (verses 5 and 6);
  • in the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we love and in whom we rejoice. (verse 8)
• It is the joy of knowing the Lord Jesus as our Savior, our Savior. He is the One who paid my debt to God and redeemed me from the consequences of sin. He is also the One with Whom I may soon share the inheritance; I may soon share His glory for all eternity.

All a Christian's joy is in the person of Jesus Christ and His atoning work on the cross of Calvary. Then indeed, as the questioner also sees it, whenever we read the Bible and reflect on it (Colossians 3:1-3), we experience that inner joy and there will also be praise and thanksgiving for God the Father and for Jesus Christ in our hearts.

Joy in the Psalms

Even the psalmists knew about dealing with the Lord and knew about joy, gladness and praise. Just read, for example, the following texts.

• "But the righteous rejoice; they leap for joy before God, and are cheerful for joy." (Psalm 68:4)
• "You make known to me the path of life; abundance of joy is with Your face, loveliness is in Your right hand forever." (Psalm 16:11)
• "LORD, the king rejoices in Your power. How much he rejoices in Your salvation! (...) For You set him to great blessing forever, You rejoice with joy, with Your face." (Psalm 21:2,7)
• "(...) so that I may go to God's altar, to God, my joy, my delight; and I may praise You with the harp, O God, my God!"(Psalm 43:4)
• "(...) serve the LORD with gladness, come before him with joyful singing." (Psalm 100:2)
• "Yes, Your testimonies are my source of joy; they are my counselors." (Psalm 119:24,77,92, 143, 174)

What suddenly strikes me in these verses is that in them joy and gladness is always connected with "God's countenance. The psalmist experiences inner communion with God and the direct result is gladness, joy and praise. He apparently experiences it in such a way that he is close to God and could see His face. We have written about this "hidden intercourse" before; e.g. here.

Experiencing God's nearness

The questioner uses the phrase "experiencing God's nearness," and there is nothing wrong with that. The term is simply found in the Bible, as also quoted from Psalm 73:28. The term "God's countenance" (or "My countenance") which we have already seen above from the Psalms also lies against this.

Yet the idea of "being close to God" or "experiencing God's presence" is widely used today in the wrong, mystical way. Therefore, I am just tying up some thoughts here to warn against the misleading use (better: misuse) of these expressions.

Nowadays there is much talk and writing about the "presence of God" or "the presence of Jesus. In English it is then called "the Presence of God," "The Presence of Jesus" or simply "The Presence. When you search for the Dutch 'the presence of God' on Google you get 840,000 hits within a split second! I think that indicates how important this topic is considered. But it is striking that most of these references are about being able to feel or experience that 'presence'.

An example: one of many

Taking out one of the first hits, we will illustrate what people are talking about. The article on the Dutch site is called "Four steps that help to experience God's presence very tangibly" (see here) and I outline - partly in my own words - the four steps here². It involves

• Hardship. Recognizing your own personal bankruptcy. That means recognizing that it is impossible for us to make anything happen, without Him. Our efforts are completely useless.
• Concentration. Also called silence; the principle of focusing all your attention on God. We discover that being "frozen in His sweetness" means that the silence we offer Him is overpowered by the silence that comes from Him.
• Worship. The third stage you may enter. Worship is incomplete until our soul is silent. The most indispensable element of the Christian life. It is both enjoying and practicing our oneness with God.
• Manifestation. In worship, there will always be a manifestation of God's presence. If we focus our attention on Him, it will take us like a river takes a surrendered body. Worship is the secret to experiencing the manifestation of His presence.

At the end of this four-step article is the following: “To behold Him in sweet fixation and loving worship is more valuable to God than any spiritual gift or service." The writer then cites a quote from A. W. Tozer, which he finds quite appropriate here: "When the eyes of the soul looking outward meet the eyes of God looking inward, heaven on earth has begun.”

Both phrases stem from the mystical experience of unification or encounter with God.

It is contemplation, but described somewhat differently

There are a few things in this description that we should comment on.

The four steps are described as a process that should lead to a "manifestation of God's presence. It looks suspiciously like the steps a person must follow in contemplation to experience "union with God. That it is indeed the same is confirmed by the fact that you come across several hits on the Internet if you do a quick search on "contemplation. For example, you may come across the following expressions (on Dutch sites)

• Contemplation: be welcome present to the Present (see here}
• Contemplation and awareness of God's presence (cf. here)
• Contemplate, contemplate, ponder - Inner experience of God's presence (see here)

Contemplation is thus explicitly related to the "presence of God.
It is noteworthy, by the way, that above on Manifestation it is said that "it takes us like a river takes a surrendered body. Worship is the secret to experiencing the manifestation of His presence." This immediately reminds us of Paul's words, "You know that you were pagans, drawn away to the dumb idols. Thus you allowed yourselves to be carried away." (1 Corinthians 12:2). Which, again, may well show that this is a pagan custom that brings people to idols.

The presence of God or Jesus

I have the strong impression that contemplative thought (and its associated practice) is still on the rise, leaving no group of Christians untouched.
For example, while writing this article I discovered 'by accident' that a book was recently published by the well-known Joni EarecksonTada that deals with this. It is called "The Practice of the Presence of Jesus" and it has not yet been translated into Dutch, but I suspect that won't take too long.

Now this is just one book, but if you search on Amazon for 'presence of God' or 'presence of Jesus' then you are presented with thousands of titles. It is unimaginable; apparently it fills a tremendous need. A need of Christians who miss something in their life of faith and believe that this is it: the presence of "the One Who is present.

Christ the Crucified is missing

The second thing that stands out in the four-step narrative is the complete lack of reference to the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is always lacking in contemplation, just as it was a lack in the church at Corinth. Paul puts his finger on it in the beginning of his first letter when he says:

• "For Christ has sent me ... to preach the Gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ lose its substance." (1 Corinthians 1:17)
• "we, however, preach Christ the Crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks a folly." (1 Corinthians 1:23)
• "For I had resolved to know nothing else among you but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified."  (1 Corinthians 2:2)

You see it in the four-step story quoted above: you have to face your own bankruptcy. Aside from exactly what that means and then how to do that and for how long .... Why doesn't such a story begin with Christ the Crucified? Who died to save lost sinners from eternal destruction? Why is it not about His work on the cross of Calvary? Because therein lies all that God wants to give us, and that is quite a lot!

We conclude with Paul's words to the church in Ephesus when he writes the following:

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Footnotes

1. See, for example, Psalm 11:4-5; 139:7-10; Jeremiah 23:23-24. ↩︎
2. This is an excerpt from the book "The School of His Presence" by Eric Gilmour. ↩︎