If you have been following along with these lessons, you may remember hearing about the census tax. It was a ransom for their lives, an atonement price, the same for everyone. The price was a half-shekel.

In Exodus 38, we read the record of the tabernacle. One of the records was of how much silver was given. It points out that the total is a half-shekel a head for the over 600,000 men of age in the congregation, those who would be counted in the census. Their freewill offering comes out to a half-shekel each.

It’s the price you pay to save your life. They were buying God’s presence, if you’ll allow me to say it in such a way, by giving money to build the tabernacle where He will dwell among them.

Having God dwelling among them was how they were going to be saved. “So shall I be saved from my enemies…” “The Lord is my rock and my salvation…” I could go on and on and on. God with them is how they live, literally how they survive.

It’s the same for us. We cannot live without God’s presence. God’s presence is not something we work up in the atmosphere with some good music.

If you have been filled with the Holy Spirit, then you have God’s presence. He’s the living water that nourishes you and gives you life.

There is no salvation by any other means. You can’t know the Bible really well and be saved. You can’t go to church and on mission trips and to Bible studies and be saved. You can’t be a good person and be spiritual and be saved. You can’t say you love Jesus and be living a sinful lifestyle and be saved. All of it is nothing without the life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit.

There is only one way to save your life, and it’s total death and surrender. You must give up your life and be broken and poured out so that the Holy Spirit can fill you up with His presence.

We can only come to the Father through Jesus by His Holy Spirit. Jesus is the only one worthy to be in His presence. We get to be part of that fellowship when we come to the cross and receive forgiveness and the power of the Spirit to walk in His presence and the newness of His resurrected life.