What Does God Feel Like?

What does it feel like when God is present? "And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God." 2 Corinthians 3:16-18 MSG

When God is present it feels like freedom. When God is a just concept, it's scary and foreboding.

How do we experience God "personally present" in our lives? The verse just before this one in 2 Corinthians 3 says this, "Only Christ can get rid of the veil so they can see for themselves that there’s nothing there. Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face!"

Jesus Christ came to reveal and unveil. He reveals God and unveils our misconceptions. He came to demonstrate that God is truly good, loving, kind, ready to forgive and willing to go to any length so we can have the opportunity to be with Him. In this moral universe, sin demands payment. He paid our debt. But Jesus is the consummate gentleman. He does not force His way into our lives. He does what anyone with love and compassion does, He gives people opportunity. His grace is always extended but must be received. So...when we decide that God exists and we want Him to be our God, we receive Jesus into our lives by faith. Our heart cry may be something like this, "Jesus I receive You and all you have done for me. I want you to be my Lord. I give my life to you."

The more we understand His sacrifice, the less rigid we are. Gratitude soaks into our consciousness. We are vitreous, steeping in divine grace. The more we let His life, revealed in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) shape our thinking about the nature of God, the deeper our experience of peace and freedom becomes. We see God (incarnate in Jesus)...willing to die...to give us the opportunity to live with Him forever. As we respond to this, the last verse (v. 18) becomes our reality:

"And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him."