Discovering God’s Ways through Intimacy with Him
R. T. Kendall
Kendall begins his book by describing the everywhere presence of God, no matter if you feel it. He also calls this the unconscious presence of God. He calls it the unconscious presence of God because God can be with us and we don’t realize it. This happened to Jacob.
In the second chapter, Kendall describes his doctrinal change from a Nazarene to a Reformed approach. He describes the discipline of the Lord as he learned how to deal with his family rejecting his decision. Even through that change, God was with him. He was teaching the author how to graciously on in this new belief system. I actually did not know he changed his doctrinal beliefs.
He writes about God hiding His face from His people. You don’t see that in many books about the presence of God. These are times when we must seek His face and long for Him. But these are times that happened in the Bible. When this happens, we must seek the Lord and His presence even more.
Chapter 4 talks about God’s presence as a holy nudge from the Holy Spirit. These are times when you sense God’s presence and feel He is telling you to do something. God’s presence isn’t just an experience. God moves us in His presence.
In chapter 6, Kendall writes about the integrity God calls us to in His presence. Integrity means to do the godly thing in every situation. God helps us to do this. People experiencing God’s presence live in a way that pleases Him.
Kendall writes about the symbols of God’s presence in chapter 7. This chapter spends a lot of time on the temple and the temple implements. Every part of the temple from the outer courts to the Most Holy Place showed God’s presence with His people. This was one of the most interesting chapters of the book.
In Chapter 8, the author focuses on revivals and how he judged whether it was a revival from God or of the flesh. Most of this happened before he became a Reformed pastor. Chapter 9 goes into the weird things he saw and how God showed him not to judge the weird things so harshly. He said that some of this may be because of the flesh, but that God can still be in it.
Chapter 10 includes the book with God’s presence in Heaven. It will be amazing to be in God’s presence all the time for eternity. He concludes the book with a call for salvation for anyone who does not know Christ.
This was a good book about some of the aspects of God’s presence. However, I thought that many of the chapters focused on things that are connected with God’s presence, but also adding some other parts of Christian theology. I think I was looking for more of a book about experiencing God’s presence. Some of the author’s focus is on things around’s presence, rather than God’s presence alone. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to get familiar with God’s presence and some of its aspects. If you need to know what God’s presence is like, this may not be the right book for you. But if you need a basic understanding of God’s presence and its effects, pick up this book and read what Kendall has to say about it.
