Feeling the Father's presence

No other man who ever lived knew God as intimately as Christ Jesus. Reading the Gospels, one cannot help feeling that here was a man who lived in the constant benediction of the Father's loving presence. Jesus was as sure of God's reality as he was of his own existence.

Listen to his words: "As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father"; n 1 "I am in the Father, and the Father in me"; n2 "I and my Father are one." n3 Who but the Father's own Son could speak of such conscious unity with God? Could there be any greater joy or satisfaction than to feel this at-one-ment with God?

n1 John 10:15

n2 14:11

n3 10:30

God is the only Life worth living, the only Love worth loving, the only Mind worth knowing. In fact, He ism the only real Life, Love, and Mind. All the pain , sorrow, loneliness, and strife of mortal existence stem from the delusive consciousness of life apart from God. This false sense of existence makes us feel estranged from God, seperated from His loving presence. This is why all our deepest longings lead us Godward: only in God are they answered.

No wonder Jesus' words touch our hearts. When he speaks of God's love for him, when he affirms that God is taking care of him, doesn't something deep within us say yearningly, "Dear Father, me too"? Doesn't our heart ache for that God-given peace "which passeth all understanding," n4 that tender love that comforts us, wipes away our tears, and sets our feet onto straight paths?

Surely we've all let this great desire. Even Jesus felt it, and so on the night before his crucifixion he prayed not only for his disciples but for those in every age who feel the Father's call to sonship. "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us." n5

n5 John 17:20, 21

The spirit of this loving prayer, filled with God's power, has redeemed countless lives throughout history and is still felt today. It touches the heart and stirs in us a yearning to know our God. And not only Jesus' prayer but hislife and the lives of all his followers continue to bless us. Mary Baker Eddy n6 rites of the Christian hero: "The Truth he has taught and spoken lives, and moves in our midst a divine afflatus. Thus it is that the ideal Christ -- or impersonal infancy, manhood, and womanhood of Truth and Love -- is still with us." n7

n6 Mrs. Eddy is the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science

n7 Miscellaneous Writings,m p. 166

The world feeels this living presence. The spirit of Truth and Love moves where it will, and no one can hinder its benign influence. Totalitarian regimes cannot repress it; barbed-wire fences cannot stop it. It moves in the hearts of all men and women everywhere, unseen, often unrecognized, yet ever present as "Christ in you, the hope of glory." n8 Nothing can stifle this great hope in us -- the hope of knowing God as He knows us in our true being, the hope whose consummation is the consciousness that "I and my Father are on."

n8 Colossians 1:27.

Every desire to be good, to love and be loved, every struggle for human rights and freedom, stems from this one great hope. God Himself has planted it in us, and He will surely lead each of us to Him. Christ Jesus has shown us the way. It's not always an easy path. It can be rugged and includes a cross to be carried. But through all trials we are supported by the Christ, that great "hope of glory." As we follow the Christ, we discern more of this glory, the glory of God's Son, and it comforts and satisfies us as nothing else can.

Can we feel the Father's presence? Can we begin to feel something of the love and unity with God that Jesus felt? Yes. This was his prayer, "that they also may be one in us." This prayer was based on the great truth Jesus himself manifested: that Spirit, God, is the Father of all, forever at one with His spiritual offspring. This fact is our "hope of glory" and reason for being. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Thou art no more a servant, but a son. Galatians 4:7