Tangible Presence of God: Accessing His Glory

Cooperating with the tangible presence of God is the same as the reality of walking with God in the cool of the day in Genesis.

Before sin entered the world, daily walking with God was meant to be our inheritance all along. The introduction of sin has caused a separation in our walk with Him, but the lavish and merciful gift of the cross and resurrection has restored us to this walk with Him. Now to do it.

A lot of people would call this cooperating with the tangible presence of the Holy Spirit or moving in the glory. The glory of God is the beauty of the very presence of God made manifest to people. There have been many individuals who have walked in a powerful expression of cooperation with the glory of God. In our circles, I often hear people talk about “the glory.” I love that we do and have no problem with it unless we fail to recognize that the glory is not an object but a Person. Glory is the manifestation of the beauty of God’s own Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Oh, that we would love when the beauty of the Holy Spirit starts moving through a room. Often this move of His glory is subtle and soft to start, personally or corporately. It requires sensitivity and humility to seek Him, to cooperate with such magnificence. I love worship, and I will worship in gratitude and faith for what He has done for me all my days. But there is something that happens when we worship with awareness of His presence—when we don’t just sing about Him but we sing to Him. In this place, a laid down offering of love invites a resting of His presence in a way no one could will.

I can feel the question of what it feels like when the glory comes. The tangible movement of the Holy Spirit brings a quickening to our spirits. Natural time feels like it stands still and, in that place, we begin to experience the reality of the Kingdom and eternity. It seems like colors, sounds, thoughts, and our senses become sharper, crisper, and bright. Our faith begins to roar within us as we behold the glory of His presence and realize that eternity is our true reality. Great miracles happen easily in the atmosphere of God’s presence and things that we have been longing for breakthrough in happen in a moment. There is a beauty that you can see or feel on a person or in a room where the Holy Spirit is making Himself known. It’s something we can’t quite describe because your spirit just knows it and senses it. There is a wonderful sharpness of mind and tenderness of heart that transpires when His glory fills a room. To “steward” what God is giving of Himself in these moments is really to give our full attention and affection to whatever He is doing. As we honor and adore His manifest presence, we are awakened to the wonder of Jesus and we enter into a keen awareness of our identity in Christ, our spiritual authority, and our inheritance in Him. The manifestation of His glory awakens us to the reality of the majesty of Jesus and the cross and allows us to move in great revelation of this because when He is known we also are knowing Jesus and the Father. When I talk about the Holy Spirit being known it is important to remember that He is not separate from the Father or the Son but all three are one.

Often in moments when the glory (the beauty of God) starts to manifest, we sense it subtly and can feel like we need to do something about it. Humans love to get results or know what the purpose of something is before we give ourselves to it. These can be great attributes for operating in the natural, to protect ourselves from being taken advantage of, but it does not serve us well in cooperating with the Holy Spirit. The sanctified mind yielded to the Spirit knows that when God’s tangible presence is moving it is not time to get its hands “on the wheel” but time to simply obey and respond.

Our ability to recognize and respond to the subtle movements of the Holy Spirit most often determines the depth in which we will experience Him. I say most often because there are times when God waits for no one and just does as He pleases, and this is marvelous. Those sovereign moments are ones to enjoy, but the stewardship moments are when we must follow His ways. The Dove is looking for a peaceful place to rest, one that is not looking to try to manage Him (like we ever could) but to move as He moves and wait as He waits.

There are some usual ways we have experienced God move over the generations, and then there are, of course, the unusual, which tend to ruffle feathers. But we aren’t in this because of what people think; we are in this because we want to know God. Some of the more typical ways I see the Holy Spirit’s resting manifest is by people experiencing physical sensations on their body. For some they experience heat or cool sensations on their bodies. This could be feeling like a part of your body or your whole being is on fire, or a sweet refreshing presence like water flowing or wind blowing. We see the reference to the Holy Spirit like fire, wind, or water through the Word of God.

For some, when the power of God starts touching their bodies, they feel a sensation of electricity moving through them and they shake, others feel a weight on them that causes them to bow or in more extreme cases fall on the ground. We see through the Old and New Testament that often when the Spirit fell on them, they would prophesy and then in Acts 2 they of course spoke in tongues and they were perceived as drunk. I don’t pretend to understand all these, but I certainly see references to God doing what He will throughout His Word. In Ezekiel 8:3 we see Ezekiel was picked up by his hair and taken into the atmosphere above the earth to be shown various things happening in Jerusalem. The Apostles being perceived as drunk in Acts 2 and Peter went into trances more than once (see Acts 10:9-23 and Acts 22:17-21). Other manifestations could be unusual things manifesting in front of our eyes. I was in the room a few times in 2012 when a cloud of gold dust swirled through the room in the Bethel sanctuary during a worship time we were in. I know there have been many who have critiqued this and called it fabricated, but that could not have been further from the truth. I watched a few times as this gold glitter dust would manifest, sometimes in more subtle ways, and the recognition of it did not detract from but magnified Jesus’s presence with us. As we made space for what He was doing and Jesus was adored and valued, it increased.

The value of recognizing the manifestation is not to seek manifestation but honor the one who is taking delight in showing something of Himself and His Kingdom to us. God in our midst is to be treasured and recognized. We do not seek manifestation—that is foolish. We seek the presence of God and we honor it. I would not ignore and devalue a gift from my loved one; I cherish the gift they are giving me because I treasure the person deeply. The recognition of His resting is just the beginning of moving with His agenda. I am so grateful that we don’t have to learn this in one moment, but we are granted a lifetime of moments to learn with Him and grow in our cooperation with the glory of God.

There have been moments when I have felt the Holy Spirit come to rest and I have moved too quickly or moved in the wrong direction. Not intentionally, of course, but in ignorance, and often in my own zeal. In our school of ministry, we are given incredible freedom as leaders to discern and move with what the Holy Spirit is doing. I have found myself in so many moments when I can discern the Spirit is moving, but I cannot always tell what the right response is. I have found myself in so many moments when I have preached and then prayed for an outpouring of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit starts moving and touching people and I find myself feeling clueless about what to do next. Do I wait? Do I pray? Do I share or sing?

I once sat down with Bill Johnson to ask him these questions, expecting him to have some sort of way or formula to solve my problem, but instead he began to ease my fear and encourage me that each moment was one to learn. Moments when I get to learn His nature, His ways, and what He loves. Instead of being fearful of getting it wrong, I now just do my best to cooperate with Him, and when I feel like I missed it I get to go back and find out where I moved left when He was going right, so the next time I can move with His leading.

We need to be willing to explore places with the Lord where we don’t feel equipped or knowledgeable in how to lead it all. These help us discover the dance of partnership that we get to participate in with Him. I am not in this for me; I am in it to receive and host Him as my all in all.