When we experience the presence of God we are experiencing a tangible revelation of who He is. Each encounter reveals the very nature of Christ to us. This then means that the more we experience His presence the more that we truly know Him. His presence is liquid knowledge: the more we drink the more we know, because He is the drink. If you’re not a drinker, you’re certainly not a knower.

This is the way to grow in the knowledge of God. His presence isn’t some divine drug that we can abuse or idolize. His presence is His very Person. His presence is the “felt” revelation of His nature. As we drink of this river we come to know by experience the love of God. God is not a mere concept, theology, or ink on a page. He is a Person that we can supernaturally sense, experience, and communicate with.

Reading a book about my wife is not equal to having a relationship with her. Imagine that I spent my entire life reading my wife’s journals and Facebook posts, but never spent any time with her intimately. No hugs, no kisses, no communication, no dates. What kind of relationship is that? What a waste of time! This is a perfect picture of the state of much of modern christianity: we read His book, and try to be good, but we live empty and disconnected from His presence. There is a lack of intimacy between most believers and their Lord. Tragically most christians live their lives ignoring the Holy Spirit. Many believers endlessly pour over the scriptures, studying them inside and out, but yet never come into a living experience of the God they so concretely believe in. Their minds of full of bible concepts, yet they have no bible experience.

Perhaps some may have had an encounter of the presence of God, but that flame has long ago died out, and they are wandering the desert, listening to sermon after sermon hoping that the black-hole inside will somehow be filled. Yet in spite of all this dead religion being played out in many christian circles, Christ is still calling us to the secret place of intimacy with Him. He so desires to reveal Himself to us personally and overwhelm every fiber of our being with His love. He longs with fiery passion to completely immerse us in the fullness of His glory. His dream is that we, “may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the height, width, and depth: to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:18-19)

We are to filled and possessed with the fullness of God, the entirety of God manifested within us. Now that is incomprehensible! A key portion of this passage contains a powerful revelation, “To know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.” In other words love that goes beyond knowledge speaks of encounter. His love is more than a sermon, a verse in the bible, or a song we sing in church. It’s a supernatural reality that we engage with, a realm that we come to experience and enjoy. His love transcends the human mind and fills the heart of the hungry soul.

The gospel is a gospel of experience, it’s supernatural from beginning to end. Sadly much of modern christianity has castrated the word of God and made it of no effect through the traditions of men, and have quenched the Spirit of God and deeply grieved Him by ignoring His presence, power, and leadership within the church. Jesus is a God who can be experienced and felt, this is what sets Him apart from every other idol, He is near, He is tangible, and His greatest desire is for intimacy and fellowship with us. The word of God without His very real presence is merely “head-knowledge,” but when His Spirit floods our hearts we are stepping into “heart-knowledge.” Again His love is beyond the realm of thought, data, information, doctrines, or knowledge, His love is a living reality, one to be personally experienced and enjoyed by the children of God. Not that doctrines or knowledge are bad, they are vitally important, but they are incomplete without His presence, they are the mere outline of the deeper reality contained within the Holy Spirit.