Prophetic Word: God is Calling You into His Presence

…Open to me, my sister, my darling… (Song of Solomon 5:2 NASB).

I don’t think there is a clearer phrase that conveys God’s desire for His people to yield to Him than these three words, “Open to Me.”

This may seem elementary, but for Him to say such a thing to us indicates that we are responsible for His entrance. The sad fact is that in one way or another we are always finding ways, directly or indirectly, to shut Him out. What do I mean? I mean that we choose to go on in His things, His language, His power, His purpose, His gifts, His family, and His realm while no longer looking to Him as our source and center. For our Christianity to be “in Christ,” everything must emerge from and through the presence of Christ.

Whether intentional or not, many of us live totally unaware of His presence. It never dawns on us that He mourns over our lack of awareness of His presence. It never even crosses our minds that He is waiting for us, always ready, willing, and longing to be all to us. We all tend to be easily distracted from Him. I know this about myself; I am forgetful. I am consistently confronted with many issues that stir my self-consciousness, so I get sidetracked and, consequently, my heart becomes hardened from the ease and simplicity of giving Him my attention. I know that if I am to receive Him through communing with Him, I must first be open to Him. And if I am ever to open to Him, it follows from turning my attention to Him.

Oh dear reader, you who have struggled to find the sweet abiding presence of God, if you get quiet and listen, you can hear Him, even now, whispering, “I am here. I am here. Open to Me, My love. Let me in.” The omnipresence of the Lord (the fact that He is always with you) shows us that the ultimate sin, self-consciousness, is living moment-to-moment unaware of His presence.

Jesus is looking through the door, reaching His hand through whatever opening there may be, so that we might see Him. He loves for us to perceive Him. He hopes that, if we can even slightly perceive Him as He reaches for us, He might arouse our desire to experience His love in communion with His person and presence. Jesus knocks. Jesus speaks. Jesus reaches, “Give Me your attention. Respond to My presence. Open to Me.” Oh, dear reader, who is not yet convinced of our dire need to perceive God, the implanted faculty of our spirit at our new birth is the very means by which He perceptibly communes with us, exchanging love with us, and setting up His rule in our hearts. Jesus is showing us that through this He can become our life-supply.

Even if we do turn our attention to Him, many of us let things stand between us and simply opening the door to let Him in. It is extremely heartbreaking to think of the wounded Son of Man and Lover of our souls “standing behind our wall…looking…peering through the lattice.” Julian of Norwich wrote in her book Revelations, about a vision of the Lord, “He waits for us…mourning….” He peers through the lattice of our own pride and knowledge—our own “spirituality” and stubbornness—our inattentiveness and arrogance turn us away from His humble person.

Can you hear His whisper seeking to let us know that He is here, longing for us to open to Him? Maybe you don’t see the Lord in this way. But the humiliation and suffering on the cross were enough to show His tenderheartedness toward you. Each drop of blood fell from that cross creating a symphony of His love for you. As He hung there, His open arms pleaded with all to open to Him. Each day we must remember the openness of the Bridegroom calling to our hearts to open to Him.

I remember I was in a store shopping with my wife, and a song came on over the speakers titled “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri. The lyric, “I have died every day waiting for you,” shot through me like a holy love arrow. I went to the restroom, shut the stall door, and wept. I was touched by His Spirit showing me that the death of Christ daily speaks, “Open to Me. I am waiting for you.” Just as He cannot take back His death, He has forever extended the desire of His heart for our hearts to open to Him. The communion elements are a reminder of His waiting and invitation for us to come to Him in all our filthiness. He knows that we are wicked and that we have great difficulty in taking our eyes off ourselves. It is this very weakness that attracts Him to us. We simply need to recognize our deep-seated depravity and cast ourselves upon Him. Even now as you read this book, see Him; hear Him. The Bridegroom’s cross is the certainty of His daily waiting for you.

You may think that you have shut Him out too many times. You may think that He couldn’t possibly still want you in the same way He did the first time He knocked. Oh, dear reader, you misunderstand the way He is. You fail to realize the Bridegroom’s tenderheartedness toward His bride. He longs for you. He looks at you. He waits for you. His knock is not restricted, for Jesus says, “The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37 NKJV).

The invitation goes out to all. The invitation goes out to you. Right now, in the middle of all your issues, in your stress, in your brokenness, there is a divine table that descends from Heaven spread for you, for any, for whoever will yield and let Him in. As Madame Guyon beautifully penned:

Come, ye poor afflicted ones, who groan beneath your load of wretchedness and pain, and you shall find ease and comfort! Come, you sick, to your Physician, and be not fearful of approaching Him because you are filled with diseases; expose them to His view and they shall be healed. Children, draw near to your Father, and He will embrace you in the arms of love! Come, you poor, stray, wandering sheep, return to your Shepherd! Come sinners, to your Savior!

Maybe your question is, “How do I open to Him?” or, “What does it even mean to open to Him?” It is encapsulated in a single word surrender. Some might use the word yield. Let me give an example of the hindrances to surrender or yielding. This may serve as a better description of what it means to yield than even the clearest definition.

Many times, publicly, we begin to sense the moving of the Lord upon our hearts and immediately think, If I give myself to this, I don’t know what is going to happen to me. I am not sure what it will look like. What will people think of me? Or we say to ourselves, Why here? Why now? Could we do this later?

Many times, when we are alone, some of us can sense Him behind the door of our hearts saying, “Open to Me,” and we will approach the door by recognizing that He is near, yet we will do everything short of actually letting Him in. We hold ourselves back from Him. We may acknowledge Him. We may press up our ear against the door, but contact will only happen when you cross the point of no return and open to Him. He will give Himself to those who cast off all reservation and yield themselves to Him.

Whether in public or in private, we must realize that the disposition of yielding is the same whether you are in a public place or a private place. The sense of His presence is His knocking on the door, but to open to Him, we must yield, and then and only then will He come in.

For some, the resistance is fear; we fear what He will do to us. We are afraid that He may alter us in some way that would rob us of some cherished pleasure or aspect of our personality. For some reason we think He will take something that we love from us. He is not that way. We often fear to give things up to Him out of a fear for their safety. But nothing is safe that is not committed to Him.

We must realize that only if He is everything can He safely give us anything. He is the ultimate pleasure, and any cherished thing apart from Him is inferior. God animates your personality. The Spirit enhances every pleasure. But oh, dear reader, if there is something that He must take from you, He takes it to spare you from the deadly effects of an “uncleansed love” and replaces it with the ultimate satisfaction of Himself. He will always lavish Himself upon those who come to Him. As Tozer said, “Surely God would not have created us to be satisfied with nothing less than His presence if He had intended that we should go on with nothing more than His absence.” In the words of Paul the apostle in Romans 8:32 (NKJV), “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”