We experience God's presence in the same ratio that we abandon our self.

Where do the following things come from?
My wisdom? Authority? Righteousness? Joy? Strength? Victory? Life? Healing? Peace? Faith?
From God. None of these things come from my self.

Jesus said in Mark 8:34-38 “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

Paul said "I die daily" 1 Cor 15:31
and
1 Cor 9:27 "I discipline my body and bring it into subjection"

Romans 8:13
"For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live."

Colossians 3:5
"Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry."

Even our ability to put to death, or mortify, our sinful nature, our flesh, our ego, our natural proclivities, comes from Jesus's death on the cross...

1 Peter 3:18
"For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit"

Ephesians 2:16
"and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity."

Peter said "Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time" 1 Pet 5:6

James said "Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up." James 4:10

We apprehend God in the exact ratio that we are desperate for God.

Jer 29:13 "And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart."

If you are looking for a failsafe, precise mathematical formula for knowing God, this is it:
When I seek God with my whole heart, I will find Him in the exact same proportion as I die to and humble my self, my ego, my worldly pride. When I die to and humble my self, I will find God rushing in to fill that space. And this is all of faith.
A non-believer can meditate all day every day and empty themselves with Yoga or Buddhism, but they will only end up being open to evil spirits if they are not crying out to Jesus. But a simple believer can cry out to Jesus from a sincere heart, and God will fill them up with His life and His joy and His power and give them a new hope and purpose and profound meaning.

Die to yourself and live to God.
But now, if you're like me, you're feeling condemned by that statement. How can I possibly die to myself? The natural man can no more die to himself than he can turn lead into gold. So how are we expected to die to ourselves?

Matthew 19:26
Jesus said “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

God's GRACE lifts us out of ourselves. The joy of the Lord is our strength. When He corrects us, it is to bring us into His grace and His life. So growing in God will involve a lot of repentance and softening our heart.

Proverbs 1:23
Turn* at my rebuke;
Surely I will pour out my spirit on you;
I will make my words known to you.
*aka "repent"

We must understand the difference between the concepts of "personal holiness" and of "positional holiness." Positional holiness can also be described as "legal holiness" or "purchased holiness" or "imputed holiness." Positional holiness if your POSITION before God. It is God's perfect holiness and righteousness that Jesus purchased for us, in our place, by taking the form of man and standing in the place of man, as our proxy, as our representative before God, and paying the price for our sins, and the sins of the whole world, past, present, and future. Since Jesus was perfect and spotless and holy, his punishment was not for Himself; so it could rightly be imputed to all of us.

Daniel 9:26
...Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself...

Only the perfect, divine Son of God could accomplish this. That's why anybody who denies the deity of Christ is also denying the very salvation He purchased with His Own blood.

By taking our place on the cross, Jesus could then offer to us the "Great Exchange." Our filthy rags for His perfect righteousness, our death and our dead works for His eternal life and adoption as Sons of God.

Our perfect righteousness and our position as God's beloved children are what Christ purchased for us on His cross. That's why it's so important for us to speak the truth. The truth is that Jesus's resurrection from the dead is absolute undeniable historical proof of our salvation and our relationship with the Living God. The truth is we serve a living savior Who hears our prayers and loves us and cares for us, One Who is closer than a brother.

"The truth shall set you free." (Jn 8:32)

"Let God be true and every man a liar" (Rom 3:4)

Numbers 23:19
"God is not a man, that He should lie,
Nor a son of man, that He should repent.
Has He said, and will He not do?
Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?"

1 John 3:20
"For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things."

If we are saved by grace through faith, and faith comes by the word of God, then God's word is preeminent. We should pray and speak to God according to His word. If we feel alone, His word says that He has not abandoned us. His word says that we are His beloved children. His word says that He has adopted us and sent His Spirit to dwell within us.

Romans 8:14
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

Romans 8:19
For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.

Romans 9:26
“And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ There they shall be called sons of the living God.”

Galatians 3:26
For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 4:6
And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”

1 John 3:1
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!

Our "personal holiness" is not something that we can create or generate through our own effort.

Philippians 3:9
...not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith

Our righteousness is the appropriation of Jesus's righteousness through our faith and submission to Him; it is allowing Jesus's personality to shine through our own, and it only comes from being in His presence.

Acts 4:13
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.

Our personal holiness is but the working of God's righteousness in our spirit-man outward to our natural man, and it is only achieved by means of faith and by taking God at His word and by allowing HIS priorities to become OUR priorities. That's why Jesus spent so much time teaching about the lilies of the field and the birds of the air and saying that you cannot serve both God and mammon. Mammon is commonly understood to mean wealth or money, but it can also be understood as "that in which you trust." It can mean the whole world system and the things that bring us comfort and security in this world in addition to just money. Not everybody is all about money, but everybody who is worldly and unregenerate in their hearts does serve mammon. Mammon might even refer to making one's ego and worldly pride their god. It doesn't even have to refer to worldly goods, necessarily. It could just mean the the opinions and the approval of others. Being a man pleaser and trying to fit in with society is serving mammon.

Matthew 16:25-26
"For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?"

Our standing before God can be called "Legal Holiness" because it is God's eternal judgment in heaven that stands forever and can never be challenged. It is the TRUTH, and it is the eternal truth. In Jesus, we are judged RIGHTEOUS. In Jesus, we stand as God's sons (1 Jn 3:1), with full authority and rights and privileges and responsibilities. In Jesus, we are seated above all authority and principalities and powers. (Eph 2:6)

This is our POSITION and our LEGAL STATUS, forever settled in heaven. Our "personal holiness" is activated when we appropriate this heavenly righteousness and supernatural authority into our conscious awareness and into our daily lives and our interactions with other people. We do this by submitting to God and by dying to ourselves, through His grace, to our pride and our reputation, our self image, our wants and desires, our plans and ambitions. We do this by confessing the truth and speaking the truth. When we speak God's truth to this world system, it has to obey. We can bring our own thoughts into alignment with God's principles by speaking the truth to ourselves. Watch your self talk. When you hear yourself saying defeatist statements, replace them with words of victory from God's word. Jesus taught us to pray "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." To bring God's kingdom into our hearts first and then into the world around us.

You are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. That is what His word says.

You are not your own, but you have been bought with a price. That is what His word says. God is your father, and He will never leave you nor forsake you. He knows what we need before we even ask, and if we ask anything in His name, He will do it.

These things are the truth, and everything that stands in the way or resists the truth or denies the truth must fall and will fall.

Phil 2:10-11 (NIV)
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord

So we know, maybe intellectually, the truth. But we need that truth to capture our hearts and to change us, to transform us from the inside. First of all, we need to recognize that we cannot arrive at the truth by simply thinking about it or by reasoning. Our natural mind is incapable of comprehending the truth.

2 Cor 2:14
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Gal 5:17-18
For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Romans 8:5
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

Isaiah 59:9
"For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts."

We are not seeking knowledge about God; we are seeking to know God, Who is un-knowable except as He reveals Himself. So we seek Him earnestly, laying aside everything else, considering it as rubbish, and pressing forward for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3)

We need to come before God in reverent awe and provide Him with a welcoming environment in our heart. Since our thoughts are vain and futile, we need to still our hearts before Him and wait before Him to fill us with His mind and His thoughts. Then we can let go of ourselves and trust Him to be our life and our guide.

Romans 12:2
And be not conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Psalm 62:1, 5
Truly my soul silently waits for God; From Him comes my salvation.
My soul, wait silently for God alone, For my expectation is from Him.

Psalm 91:1
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

Isaiah 41:1
“Keep silence before Me, O coastlands, And let the people renew their strength!..."

Isaiah 40:31
But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.

The Lord showed me on Friday night during worship that I hold back ALL of His blessings by holding out from Him just a tiny bit of my self and my life. If I give Him 99% of myself but hold onto just 1%, what benefit do I get from that 1%? I've already given Him 99%, but I evidently think that keeping the last 1% for myself is a good trade against ALL of His blessings He is wanting to pour out on me? I ask Him right now for the grace to show me and all of us the tiny little insignificant sins we are holding onto that keep His grace from flooding into us. The little impure thought, the bad attitude, grumbling or complaining, the spicy word. Why not be honest with ourselves and count the cost of following Him? We have already made the decision to follow Jesus, but are we going to insist on following Him without the benefits of all His grace and goodness just so we can hold onto that last little bit of self? Or are we going to be honest and confess that we are holding out on Him and actually surrender that last 1% so we can experience His fullness of joy and abandon ourselves to His mercy and love and allow Him to lead us and guide us into all righteousness? Jesus is calling us to come to the table so He can sup with us, so He can fellowship with us and commune with us. He wants us to KNOW Him as He knows us. He said "blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." If you are hungry and thirsty, come to Jesus right now and surrender completely. Let go of that last 1%.

John 7:37-38 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”

Jesus was quoting Isaiah 55. Read it.

Then this morning the Lord gave me a word. First He showed me that I only have two possible standings before God:
1) Naked and ashamed, or
2) Clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

There is no other option.

His word was "Return to Me, and you will no longer walk in the futility of your mind but you shall have the light of life. For it is I Who walks with you, and I shall be your light."