Seeking God’s Presence, not His presents

God is not your spiritual Santa Claus! Yes, God does give you gifts, and His gifts are all good, but God does not want you to be more interested in what He gives than in knowing who He is.

Santa Claus comes, leaves gifts under a tree or in a stocking and in a flash, He is off to another house. Santa does not stick around; he is not interested in spending any time with the recipients of his gifts, as a matter of fact, he’s so not interested that he only comes once a year in the dead of night when all are fast asleep.

Santa Claus does not want any type of relationship with you. Yet you want to treat God like Santa, focusing primarily on the gifts and not on the Giver; you’re consumed with His presents and not His Presence.

 God is no Santa Claus, He desires above all else to be in intimate relationship with you. And that is what you should also desire – close fellowship and communion with God – to know God intimately. The only way to know God intimately is to spend time with Him. Study His Word, communicate with Him through prayer, and according to David, you are to “seek, inquire for and insistently require” God so that you may consistently be in His Presence.

“One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek, inquire for, and [insistently] require: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord [in His presence] all the days of my life, to behold and gaze upon the beauty [the sweet attractiveness and the delightful loveliness] of the Lord and to meditate, consider, and inquire in His temple.” – Psalm 27:4 (AMPC)

Make God the priority over things. Pursue God, crave Him and put aside your desire for things. Turn away from the ‘what’ and fix your eyes on the ‘Who’.

In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says to, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” (see Matthew 6:33). In other words, what you should want most, above all else is to be in God’s Kingdom – the realm of God’s reign, where you may enjoy the blessings of God now – and His Son Jesus Christ, Who is the Righteousness of God.

Notice that Matthew 6:33 ends with a promise, “and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Here is another promise of God,

“if my people will humble themselves and pray, and search for me, and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear them from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.” – 2 Chronicles 7:14 (TLB)

Beloved, when your motive is to be in His Presence, it’s then you receive everything that you need.

Amen †

 

Shelley Johnson “Seeking God’s Presence, not His Presents” © 2013 revisited April 3, 2025