Wooed into His Presence

Woo....an Old English word for actively pursuing, seeking to gain or bring about....I like that word.

That it is what God does for us.
 

God woos us into His presence.

We know God's grace initially calls and leads us to repentance and faith.  That calling grace forever reestablishes the broken fellowship created by sin.  We were enemies of God and He came to us, bought us and brought us back to Him through the perfect sacrifice of His Son.  We know it is by grace we have been saved.

If the purpose of grace is ultimately to bring us back into right relationship with God, then God's daily grace keeps us in fellowship with Him.  We work and try to be good to earn His favor.  In reality, Christians, already have His favor, not because we are good, but because He is good and full of grace. Then, we feel if we haven't been good enough, we have lost favor with God.  Apart from Christ, nothing you do can earn it or lose it....that's why it is grace.

Nothing we do can separate us from Christ's love; there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.  That is contrary to human nature--we feel separated and condemned and pull away from the fellowship that used to bring us such peace. 

In fact, God's grace and fellowship are always there.  We cover it and refuse it, because of our own sinful minds and attitudes. 

Think how easy it is to praise God when all is right with our little world and there is nothing to hide.  We yearn to learn and grow.  We eat up sermons and scripture and blare worship music.  We get out of ourselves and look up to God. We welcome fellowship.

When trials come, sometimes it's hard to praise.  It's hard to approach the Throne of Grace and harder still to stay there.  Our selfish nature causes us to turn inward and retreat.  We stare at our troubles and horde sad thoughts, choosing to collect them instead of tossing them at the throne of the One who can actually take them from us.

Sometimes, we turn inward, because our own sin has left us ashamed and feeling unworthy.  Sometimes, we turn inward, because we are angry that God permitted hurt to come into our lives.  We focus on betrayal, pain, death, lies and memories of vile sin from our past instead of giving them to God.

If we listen carefully and are sensitive and obedient, we can hear the still quiet voice of God wooing our hearts and pulling us back to him.  He will do it over and over.  We can choose to harden our hearts and stick our fingers in our ears yelling, "I don't want to", like a stubborn child.  Or, we can chose to trust the wooing and see it as God's grace calling us to enter into His sweet fellowship again.

No matter if you are happy and whole, or bitter and demolished, the safest place to be is in fellowship with God. 

One of my favorite books is the 1948 classic, The Pursuit of God, by AW Tozer.  In my favorite chapter, Removing the Veil, Tozer reminds us the temple veil was torn in two and as believers in Jesus Christ, we have full access to God.  The veil no longer restricts our access, God is always available.  Tozer then questions why it often feels as though the thick, heavy veil is back and God is far away and unreachable.  He says:

 

"The whole work of God in redemption is to undo the tragic effects of that foul revolt (Adam's sin), and to bring us back into right and eternal relationship with Himself....God wills that we should push on into His presence and live our whole life there. This is to be known to us in conscious experience.  It is more than a doctrine to be held; it is a life to be enjoyed every moment of every day"

The work is complete. Christ suffered and died to conquer death and allow us full access to the very Throne of God!  Think about the weight of that idea.  Christ did it, "It is Finished".  God does not hinder us from Himself.

Tozer says:

With the veil removed by the rending of Jesus' flesh, with nothing on God's side to prevent us from entering,  why do we tarry?  Why do we consent to abide all our days just outside the Holy of Holies and never enter at all to look upon God?  We hear the Bridegroom....we sense that the call is for us, but, still we fail to draw near, and the years pass and we grow old and tired in the outer courts of the tabernacle.

Listen to what he is saying.  As Christians, we hear God calling....wooing us....and we just sit there, content to live outside His presence.  Content to stay on the fringe and content to stay out of the fullness of fellowship with Him.  That's like purchasing a new home and having a family and then spending every day on the porch, never to enter that warm, loving place.  We would never choose to do that....but, we do it daily with God. 

By letting your sins, failures and pain keep you on the fringe of God's presence, you are missing out on the restoration, healing, comfort and wisdom that you can find there. Tozer says that we weave a new veil over our hearts and block the fellowship.  We do it.  He says:

It's not too mysterious, this opaque veil, nor is it hard to identify.  We have but to look into our own hearts and we shall see it there, sewn and patched and repaired it may be, but there nevertheless, an enemy to our lives and an effective block to our spiritual progress. ...to be specific, the self-sins are self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them.

 

Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us....

 

We must invite the cross to do it's deadly work within us.  We must bring our self-sins to the cross for judgment.  We must prepare ourselves for an ordeal of suffering in some measure like that that through which our Savior passed when He suffered under Pontius Pilate."  

If we do not feel His presence, He is not the one that left.   Our sinful flesh is content to keep trusting itself.  We love to look at our messes and focus on our pain.  We cannot get rid of this on our own.  Just as the temple curtain was torn by God, the veils we sew ourselves must also be torn by God.

Even if you do not feel like it, go to Him.  Tell him you don't feel like coming.  Be honest.  Tell Him you are bored, you think you are doing fine on your own, you are mad at Him or someone else, you are ashamed of what you have done....Whatever it is that is keeping you from full fellowship with Him.  Then ask Him to shatter it and cast it away.

Take your stuff to His Throne and actually give it to Him.  Don't keep clenching it and staring at it.....let it go and look at Him.  What good does it do you to approach the Throne of Grace and just keep looking at your self and your messed up stuff?

 

His grace wooed you at first, and it is wooing you now.  Do not turn a hard heart.  Approach the Throne with confidence, because He cares for you.  Get up and go in....He has already made the way for you and He is already there waiting. 

There is no place on earth where you would rather be, than in full fellowship with God.  He longs for you to be there with Him! If you find yourself separated from God, YOU are the only reason you aren't there....

Let His grace woo you into His presence.