{"id":41167,"date":"2026-08-03T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/?p=41167"},"modified":"2026-08-03T17:13:02","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T00:13:02","slug":"26-0804","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/26-0804\/","title":{"rendered":"God\u2019s Near Presence"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Max Lucado<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

God repeatedly pledges his presence to his people. To Abram, God said, \u201cDo not be afraid\u2026I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward\u201d (Genesis 15:1 NKJV). God told Joshua, \u201cDo not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go\u201d (Joshua 1:9 NIV).<\/p>\n

In the ultimate declaration of communion, God called himself Immanuel, which means, \u201cGod with us.\u201d He became flesh. He became sin. He defeated the grave. He is still with us. In the form of his Spirit, he comforts, teaches, and convicts.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t assume God is watching from a distance. Isolation creates a downward cycle of fret. Choose instead to be the person who clutches the presence of God with both hands. We can calmly take our concerns to God because he is as near as our next breath. And because the Lord is near, we can be anxious for nothing!<\/p>\n

\"\"Read more\u00a0Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

God repeatedly pledges his presence to his people. To Abram, God said, \u201cDo not be afraid\u2026I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward\u201d (Genesis 15:1 NKJV). God told Joshua, \u201cDo not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go\u201d (Joshua 1:9 NIV).<\/p>\n

In the ultimate declaration of communion, God called himself Immanuel, which means, \u201cGod with us.\u201d He became flesh. He became sin. He defeated the grave. He is still with us. In the form of his Spirit, he comforts, teaches, and convicts.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t assume God is watching from a distance. Isolation creates a downward cycle of fret. Choose instead to be the person who clutches the presence of God with both hands. We can calmly take our concerns to God because he is as near as our next breath. And because the Lord is near, we can be anxious for nothing!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41169,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-upwords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41167"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41170,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41167\/revisions\/41170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}