Present or Absent?

Present or Absent?

During my schooling days over 50 years ago, soon after the school bell each morning, every class had register marking or roll call. You needed to be seated in your classroom to respond; when your name was called, you had to put your hand up and say, "Present". The teacher would give just a few seconds and if no response, would mark you "Absent".

Absent didn't mean you were dead; it just meant that you were not on your seat in your classroom. Obviously, you were somewhere else!

A mild form of epilepsy is called 'Absences' where, for a brief period, the individual concerned is not fully conscious of his or her surroundings. He or she is mentally 'absent'.

 So we are always confident, 

knowing that while we are at home in the body 
we are absent from the Lord. 

For we walk by faith, not by sight. 

We are confident, 
yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the 

body and to be present with the Lord. 

2 Corinthians 5:6-8 

The Scripture says that we walk by faith and not by sight. Christian believers who have the Holy Spirit active in them, have a spiritual sense they constantly respond to. They have spiritual vision and spiritual hearing and other senses that are beyond the physical senses. These senses give them understanding of spiritual happenings in people and in circumstances. This is referred to as the walk of faith. When the spiritual mind is active, the natural mind could be 'absent' and vice versa. 

Such experiences could also be referred to as 'going in and out and find pasture' or 'being In the spirit'.  

 I am the door. 

If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, 

and will 'go in and out' and find pasture. 

John 10:9 

 I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, 

and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, 

Revelation 1:10 

It is important for us to develop such a spiritual mind so that we are constantly 'present' with the LORD, sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Then one day when we hear the call "Come up here", we will be ready to respond. Then we will be forever absent from the body and present with the LORD! We will 'go out' no more!

 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, 

with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. 

And the dead in Christ will rise first. 

Then we who are alive and remain 

shall be caught up together with them in the clouds 

to meet the Lord in the air. 

And thus we shall always be with the Lord. 

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

He who overcomes, 

I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, 

and he shall go out no more. 

And I will write on him the name of My God 
and the name of the city of My God, 

the New Jerusalem, 
which comes down out of heaven from My God. 

And I will write on him My new name. 

Revelation 3:12