CBN.com – Have you longed
to experience more of God? Pastor and author Dave Early longed
for a more intimate fellowship with God. His quest led him to
explore the spiritual secret shared by people like Moses, Joseph,
David, and the apostles. The one thing they all had in common
is something he calls "The Immanuel Factor." In his
new book, Living in His Presence, he explains what he
discovered. In the following excerpt, Early discusses what it
truly means to have "God with us."
God With Us
A couple of years ago I grappled with the gnawing realization
that something was missing. I had been a highly committed
follower of Jesus for over twenty years, yet deep inside there
was something severely amiss.
Twenty years earlier I had traded falling down drunk with homemade
wine for being madly in love with God (Ephesians 5:18). He became
my joy, my anchor, my buddy, my Savior. I loved everything about
Him. The highlight of my day was our hour-long rendezvous, when
I would pour out my heart into His listening ears. His presence
was my magnificent obsession. I wildly relished just being with
Him.
Yet now I missed Him.
I understood that God often withdraws a sense of His presence
for a time in order to help us mature in our faith. But this was
more than that. This was not a dark season of the soul; it was
a long, lonely rut of desert desperation.
Too busy in the ministry while raising a family, I had begun
relating to God purely from my head and will, not out of the wellspring
of a heart on fire. Even though I was still strong in my faith,
I was appalled to catch myself going through spiritual routines
and whipping out prayers by rote. I realized that the flames of
my "first love" were dangerously low.
The holy hunger and desperation to know God had cooled. That
aching urgency to be with God had left. I knew I had to have something
more than merely going through the motions and doing the right
thing--I must have God himself.
I knew that no one-time emotional experience was the answer.
No. What I had to have was a deeper encounter with God in both
my mind and my emotions and a greater sense of God's presence
in my daily life. But I wasn't sure what to do.
Then I remembered the Immanuel Factor.
Ohio Earley
Years earlier, as a college student, I set out to read all the
way through the Bible in a year. My goal was to follow the three-chapters-a-day-will-keep-the-devil-away
plan.
As I opened my Bible every day I felt like a spiritual Indiana
Jones--or in this case, Ohio Earley. I approached God's Word with
a consuming sense of awesome anticipation. I was sure that delightful
discoveries were just on the horizon. I loved the adventure of
reading for myself the famous stories, popular promises, and timeless
truths I had heard many times before. I also enjoyed "discovering"
wonderful Bible events or insights I did not know existed.
As I read through the Old Testament I noticed something. Nestled
in the defining events of almost every great Bible character was
the little phrase "God was with him." This was something
I could not remember hearing anyone preach on or teach about.
But there it was, regularly repeated in the Scriptures. One hero
after another was said to be blessed or successful because of
one common denominator: "The Lord was with him."
Then I came to the New Testament book of Matthew. After wading
through the genealogies, I was pleased to pop out into the Christmas
story (Matthew 1:18–25). Again, I noticed something new
to me. As you know, an angel told Joseph that the baby Mary was
carrying was the most legit baby ever conceived. The baby even
had a title. The messenger angel quoted the prophet Isaiah, "'The
virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they
will call him Immanuel'--which means, 'God with us'" (Matthew
1:23).
I had heard and read that before, of course, but this time I
saw that last phrase with fresh eyes. I slowly read the familiar
words again, "They will call him 'Immanuel,' which means,
'God with us.'"
"God with us." That was the concept I had noticed throughout
the Old Testament -- God's blessed presence with mankind. Jesus
could be referred to as Immanuel because He was to be God present
with us. From that point on, I began to think of the active presence
of God with us as "Immanuel" and to call the reality
of experiencing the manifest presence of God "the Immanuel
Factor."
As I reminisced about the early years of my spiritual walk the
phrase "God with me" struck a chord. That was what I
remembered. I loved that warm smile of God shining on my face
and the strong hand of God guiding my life. It was flat-out fun
to be with God and to know He was with me, really with
me.
I missed Him. I longed for that "God is with me" experience
again.
I began to read back through the Old Testament just to make sure
that the Immanuel Factor was really there. Yep. Immanuel, God's
presence, was frequently cited as the determining factor in the
success and failure of the people of God. I noticed that it was
not indiscriminately given, though. There were prerequisites for
experiencing the manifest presence of God and conditions that
would lead to the noticeable decrease of His presence as well.
As this came together in my mind a fire began to build in my
heart. My pulse pounded with the same adrenaline that must have
raced through the veins of Christopher Columbus when he stood
on the shores of the New World, or in Lewis and Clark when they
saw the Pacific Ocean. I was on to something. I really was
Ohio Earley. I had stumbled onto an ancient treasure. In the Immanuel
Factor I had discovered a forgotten secret of spiritual success.
I held a key that could unlock the door to a deeper encounter
with God and gain access to the vast storehouse of spiritual riches.
Then I began to rummage through some biographies of great men
and women of God. If this is real, I figured, they must have seen
it too--and applied it to their lives. The first few books I yanked
down from my shelves were the stories of Corrie ten Boom, Amy
Carmichael, John Wesley, D. L. Moody, Charles Spurgeon, and Charles
Finney. Bing! Bang! Bong! Boom! Every one of them evidenced the
Immanuel Factor! This could be big.
Next, I worked back through the New Testament to see if, and
how, the Immanuel Factor applies today under the new covenant.
I found the Immanuel Factor to be central in the new covenant.
The principles sketched in the lives of the Old Testament saints
were fleshed out and applied by the Spirit-filled life described
in the New Testament.
What is the Immanuel Factor?
The term Immanuel Factor may seem a bit fuzzy. Let me
attempt to clarify it somewhat up front, and then we will unpack
it as we go. When I speak of the Immanuel Factor, I am speaking
of a heightened experience of the manifest presence of God.
I am talking about an increased capacity to be in step with the
Almighty and move in the sphere of His activity.
While available to everyone at salvation, the Immanuel Factor
is not realized or applied by every Christian because there are
choices that need to be made and conditions that need to be met.
This book is a study of those key requirements that release the
manifest presence of God in our lives.
The Immanuel Factor can produce anything (or everything) that
could be expected by keeping close company with God. God's manifest
presence may result in evident blessing, inner transformation,
even outright miracles--but it will not necessarily do so.
Ironically, as I write this book, I am in a season of affliction.
My friends jokingly call me "Job." Even though I am
not feeling much of the presence of God, I can still
see Him very actively at work in the midst of my adversity. I
know that in a few years I will see His fingerprints all over
this season of sorrow.
The recipients of the Immanuel Factor are usually keenly aware
of it, but that's not always the case. There are times when we
only see the presence of God through the lens of hindsight. Looking
back, it becomes abundantly clear that He was very close to us
and highly active on our behalf.
Immanuel Means "God With Us"
As we have seen, Immanuel is a Hebrew word that means
"God with us" (Matthew 1:23). Those three words serve
as the foundation, core, and climax of the Immanuel Factor. Each
word is crammed full of meaning. Let's look at each of them in
turn.
God
Immanuel means "God with us." The Immanuel
Factor is living with a heightened experience and awareness of
the manifest presence of God. The beauty of the Immanuel Factor
is that it is not primarily about us. It is about God. Maybe you
wanted to read this book because you were looking for something
that seemed to be missing from your daily life. That something
is Someone--God! What you really crave is found by experiencing
more of Him--more often, more deeply, more intimately, and more
powerfully--than you imagined possible.
With
Immanuel means "God with us." The Immanuel
Factor is living with a heightened experience and awareness of
the manifest presence of God. The Immanuel Factor is God's presence
with us in a tangible, potent way.
You may be thinking, "But isn't God with us all the time
anyway?" The answer is yes and no. We need to distinguish
the difference between the four levels of the presence of God.
The first level is what theologians call omnipresence.
It means that God is everywhere present and present everywhere.
He is infinite; therefore, He is present in all places at the
same time. The omnipresence of God touches everyone and everything
in the universe.
It is kind of like air. It is always there, but we pay little
attention to it--unless for some reason it is suddenly removed.
The second level of God's presence could be called the abiding
presence of God. The Bible describes the abiding presence of God
when it says, "'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake
you'" (Hebrews 13:5). It is a promise believers enjoy because
it gives us such sweet comfort. It only touches the followers
of God.
It is like the sun. Prior to meeting God through faith in Christ,
our souls only knew darkness or night. But after meeting God,
our eyes were opened to the delights of the day and the sweet
sensations of the sun. We are glad that God's abiding presence
is always with us and are comforted by enjoying its warmth and
light. After a while, though, we tend to take it for granted.
There is also a third level of God's presence. We could call
it the heavenly presence of God. It affects those who
are in heaven, where God's presence is revealed in an unlimited
way. God's presence is unhindered and unrestricted there. Heaven
is all God, all the time. That is what makes it so heavenly!
Because God is light (1 John 1:5), heaven is full of light (Revelation
21:23–25; 22:5). As God is creative, excellent, loving,
joyful, encouraging, faithful, true, good, and holy, so is heaven
a marvelously holy place, overflowing with all that is beautiful
and truly excellent, running over with love, joy, encouragement,
truth, and peace. Heaven is the sphere where the heavenly presence
of God is unleashed.
So there is the omnipresence of God, the abiding presence of
God, and the heavenly presence of God. But none of these are what
we call the Immanuel Factor.
The Immanuel Factor is about experiencing the manifest
presence of God. It is God's personality made obvious, tangible,
and visible in us, around us, and for us. It is like walking in
the sunshine, yet much more. It is God's creative, excellent,
living, loving, joyful, encouraging, faithful, true, good, and
holy presence flowing around and within us. It is having a distinctive
aura of God punctuating and permeating everything about us. It
is God at work in our lives.
Us
Immanuel means "God with us." God is not a
distant deity. He can become a close companion and an accessible
ally. His presence is not something that is only offered to someone
else. It is available to us -- to me and to you.
The challenge of the Immanuel Factor is that choices we make
can affect how much of the presence of God we enjoy. We can go
through life blind to God, apprehending little of Him as His omnipresence
goes largely unnoticed. We can become His children through faith
in Jesus Christ and be comforted by His abiding presence, ultimately
reveling in His heavenly presence.
But if we want to experience some measure of heaven on earth
and we are willing to meet the conditions prescribed in the Word
of God, then we can experience the manifest presence
of God. God is available to all of us, but how much of God we
experience and apprehend is up to us.
Excerpted from Living
in His Presence by Dave Earley, Copyright 2005.
Published by Bethany House Publishers. Unauthorized duplication
prohibited.
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