Gaining Access to the Presence of God

In Psalm 15, the question is asked, “Lord, who may abide in Your tabernacle? Who may dwell in Your holy hill?” The writer is identified as David, who has touched God’s presence in such wonder and amazement that he longs to not just go there from time to time, but to stay there, to live and remain in the presence of his God.

So the Lord responds to David  with some powerful statements of the character qualities that He is looking for in those who would enter into His Presence and remain there. I want to focus this article on two of the phrases that God speaks in verse 2: the one who wants to be in the presence of God all the time must “work righteousness,” and must “speak truth in his heart.”

It’s really important here to be clear on the meaning of the word “righteousness.” This is not primarily good behavior; rather, righteousness is being aligned with God’s definition of reality, conformity by the power of the Holy Spirit to God’s design of your life and character. Right behavior arises out of being aligned with His definition of your life, and living out of that true place.

The fundamental thing that every believer in Jesus must understand about this passage is that Jesus Himself has done this perfectly, and is now in the Father’s presence as the perfect fulfillment of every demand of righteousness and truth. Through the miracle of the new birth, by the Holy Spirit’s presence in us, Jesus has infused His righteousness into you and me, and given us the raw material we need to walk in righteousness even as He did.

Practically, this simply means to seek out, from the Word of God, by the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, what God’s definition of your life really is. The more we comprehend what He intended when He thought us up, the more we are able to be aligned with that reality, and live in agreement with His thoughts – namely, live in righteousness.

Speaking the truth in the heart, then, is simply the outworking of internal righteousness. We agree with what God thinks, the truth concerning ourselves, those around us, the world situation, and we speak in our hearts, and then through our lips what He thinks. The more that our minds and hearts are in agreement with Him, the freer we are to simply stay in His presence, to abide there.

This kind of person is a world-changer. We think of ourselves and others according to righteousness – agreement with God’s opinion – speak those things in the secret places of the heart and then in the open places of our relationships, and the atmosphere begins to change by the power of the Word of the Lord.

Jesus has done it. He is in the Father’s presence, speaking the truth about you and me, and about everything else. He has invited us to listen in, and to agree with what He is thinking and saying. As we do, the influence of the Kingdom of God changes our environment, His presence increases, and the glory of the Lord begins to fill the earth, just as He promised it would.

Gary Wiens