The Devotional – 031 – In the presence of God

The Devotional – 031 – In the presence of God

Proverbs 30:29-31 – There are three things which are majestic in pace, Yes, four which are stately in walk: A lion, which is mighty among beasts And does not turn away from any; A greyhound, A male goat also, And a king whose troops are with him. 

 

 Comments and challenges

We have all seen lions and kings, either by the media or in pictures or for the lion at the zoo. Maybe also we have had the opportunity to be in a foreign country where a king reigns, but the most common way for us to experience majesty in action is to own a Greyhound, and go ahead now and think in your mind… “a dog has majesty?” But if you do not own a Greyhound this is the obvious observation. Before we owned a greyhound I was heard to say. “I will never have one of these dogs they look like a large rat.”

Usually when it comes to matters like this I am always “wrong” we now have a greyhound, we have owned her about five years and to say that the dog is majestic would be no lie. She looks and acts like royalty, well I might exaggerate a little here, since she does at night when I am trying to sleep… bite her toe nails! Other than that she prances, dances runs and stands majestically. She even stares at you as though she were looking down her royal nose at you. Now don’t get it wrong, she is a typical “hound dog” who loves food and sleep, what is atypical is that she loves to run, most hounds are lazy.

Now we have a Welsh Corgi too, these dogs are of royalty too, but they seem to be more like the “butler” in the kings palace, the Corgi is a male so you would think he would be aggressive while the hound, a female would be calm and peaceful, but it is just the opposite. One of the ways to know if your dog is willing to worship you is to see if it “fawns” or is willing to lick your hand. The Corgi seeks to lick my hands every time I try to pet him, while the greyhound has never licked my hand.

Now the greyhound does demonstrate affection but it is not genuine, in fact I think she is mostly phony about affection in that she is seeking to gain something from you or just pushing her weight around to show the Corgi who is boss. To understand this totally would be impossible because the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 expresses this truth about the various creations of God all of which are different in flesh and intellect and that these lines of creation cannot be crossed over for full understanding.

In other words I like what Lewis Sperry Chafer says about this in his book “He that is spiritual” on page 4 and I quote; “He (mankind) cannot extend his sphere. He cannot know experimentally the things of the animal world below him, and certainly he cannot enter a higher sphere and know experimentally the things of God.” This statement of Dr. Chafer is very good to say the least, but there is more and in his following words “even though man, of himself, cannot know the things of God, the Spirit knows them, and a man may be so related to the Spirit that he too may know them.

This then is the one spiritual connection that we have of and with God to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. In fact; if you do not have the Spirit of God, you may look to others as “majestic in worship” or like the greyhound. While the Corgi who loves to be affectionate by licking the hand is truly responding as one who is willing to worship you. To see this in scripture is to see John 3:16 as John explains in this verse that God’s love seeks those who respond to Him through believing in His Son and in John 4:23-24 we see that to “worship” God we must do so in the Spirit and in the Truth.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (And) John 4:23-24 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

Now if you look at the word worship in Vine’s Concordance you will see that we ought to respond to God according to His provision or like the Corgi who is genuine by fawning (in fact the concordance uses fawning as an example of true worship) while the greyhound is phony with only the majestic appearance to gain something in her own strength or way (selfishness).