The Old Testament reveals that God is present throughout the entire universe, yet it also shows that He dwelt in a special way in the temple. The temple was considered the house of God, the place where people went to meet Him (Psalm 27:4).

With the coming of the New Covenant, this understanding changes. God’s dwelling place is no longer a physical building but His people (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19). The God who fills the universe now lives within us. We are a people of His Presence. We can look at this in the context of our union with Christ. Through the Spirit, Christ is in us, and we are in Him. As Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

When we consider God’s personal presence, we may want to sense his presence. And we feel disappointed if we don’t.  We say it has all come to nothing.  I wanted warm feelings of God with me all the time, but I don’t enjoy this. You may even become introspective, looking inside to see if you can feel anything at all of God in there. 

We must recognise that a genuine sense of God’s presence is a gift from God to us.  We cannot produce it.  What we can aim to do is simply live present to his presence in the whole of life, trusting God for a sense of his presence.  As we do so, we trust the God of grace to grant us a sense of his presence that will flood our lives with his joy.