We all need a place where we can go to refresh, a safe place to let go of all our worries and concerns and just feel restored.
The presence of the Holy Spirit is that place.
In God’s presence we can let go of everything (because he already knows everything) just let his presence refresh and restore us, energize us and renew our passion.
No matter what’s going on, how, stressed or busy we are, we need to make the time for his presence.
Because the presence of the Holy Spirit is that place of vulnerability where we can be real and raw, we don’t have to hide anything because he knows everything and we can pour out our souls and be made whole in him.
Even on our worst day, when we feel we have nothing left, we always have God. He will be our strength when we are weak. He will lead us to the firm foundation that lifts us up and shelter us from the storms.
Jesus did not fear weakness, he fasted for forty day and forty nights because he knew that Father God would sustain him. He allowed himself to be beaten and killed because he knew God would raise him. Showing vulnerability shines God even brighter when he lifts us up, he gives us the strength and stamina to continue to share him with others despite our own iniquities.
God is always listening to us, always ready to answer our call for help, for wisdom, for protection, for strength and for shelter.
People often see weakness as a sign of failure. I see it as a sign of strength. The bravery to be vulnerable enough to show your weakness is strength. But its what we do with that weakness.
Do we just curl up in a ball and call it quits or admit our weakness and ask God for his strength. Strength is knowing that the smallest amount of God’s strength can out due us on our strongest day. Knowing where your strength comes from, makes being vulnerable easy.
It’s easy to feel alone and like no one understands, because no one really knows what every moment of your life is like.
But God does…
…He knows because he was there with us whether we realize it or not. God is the only one who can and does understand, but we often feel afraid to go to him because we’re worried about what he would think. But he already knows it all so there is really nothing we can hide from him.
And even in knowing everything he still loves us.
We don’t have to be afraid of him, because he is love. Nothing about God is something that we should ever fear.
Because he is love, joy, peace, patience, kind and good.
So what about that is scary?
He is the one that we can always turn to no matter what.
So no matter what is running through your head or your heart, you can’t surprise God. But you can let him in.
When you love someone you want to spend all your time with them. That’s what I love about God. I never get tired of spending time with him and he never grows tired of me.
To have someone that you can always go to no matter what, whether your weak and tired or thrilled beyond belief. The one you love is who you want to share that with.
God is that one.
He is always there, always waiting, wanting to spend time with you. He rejoices in your successes and comforts you in your sadness.
The beauty of the kingdom of God is that’s its infinite and we don’t have to strive to bring his kingdom to this world.
When we accepted Jesus into our hearts, when we accepted his loving sacrifice, he came to live in us. When we allow the Holy Spirit to flow thru us and stop trying to do it on our own. Peace and joy can abound through us.
God’s presence is amazing and beautiful, peaceful and joyful all at once.
When we bring God into a situation he changes the atmosphere.
When we allow him to build his kingdom in and through us, nothing can hinder us, when we give him full freedom in our lives he gives us freedom.
When Jesus said he would destroy the temlpe and rebuild it in three days, he did. He destroyed the temple and tore the veil so that we all can experience his presence. When he rose from the grave he built his kingdom in our hearts, so that he can be everywhere and in all of us.
No matter where you are, if you have Jesus in your heart his kingdom is always with you. Share his love and peace, his grace and beauty, his peace and joy with everyone around you, because he is always with you.
In our current time of social media and constant self promotion it can be hard to be humble.
We can be so worried about how many likes, shares, hits, retweets we get that we can lose sight of who and what we represent. As believers in Jesus we are meant to shine him to others. And we can be discouraged when even our posts about him get little traffic.
But we must remember that what we write/post/share for him isn’t about us, it’s about him. And even if it reaches just one person, it might be what that one person needed more than we could ever know.
As the Christmas season begins. Remember the reason for the season. Don’t let yourself become overwhelmed with the shopping, decorating, gift giving and parties.
Instead keep your focus on Jesus, he is the reason for the season. Make him the focus of all you do.
If your shopping for gifts ask him what gift that person really needs and trust him to help you. Ask God to give you opportunities to share about him to the store clerk or the people in line with you. While decorating sing Christmas songs as worship songs.
The humility of Jesus birth speaks volumes to his character. Jesus is the very creator he is the word that was spoken that created us. And he choose to be born in a glorified cave surrounded by animals, by his creation not by man made structure.
He came to do his fathers work not what we thought he should do. He came to bring peace, joy and gentleness. So that all may know him.
Read about him, really study his words and actions, not what man says about him but he says.
Our worship should be ingrained in us, so much that everything within us cries out to God. Every fiber in our body should be yielded and shout out to him “you are HOLY.”
King David danced because he wanted everything within him to praise God. “Who decided that reservation is worship? God gave his everything for us. Why shouldn’t we do the same in our worship?
Photo by David Calderón on Unsplash
What will happen if you lift your arms. Will the world end?
If you jump for joy, will the ground fall out underneath you? No. God gives a firm foundation.
If you dance for joy. Will God turn from you in shame? No, he will dance with you!
Surrounded (fight my battles) by Michael W Smith may be the simplest lyrics ever written but they are powerful. The song talks about our times of struggle when we feel a heaviness, no way out, surrounded by nothing good or positive. We fight with praise. We fight by rejoicing in Jesus, the only one who is always constantly there for us, always fighting for us.
Over and over again has such power in it because it reminds us that we don’t fight with anger, hate, malice and judgment.
We fight with love, joy, peace and patience.
That’s why when we feel surrounded, we fight by giving praise to God.
We shift our focus to the one who fights for us, so that we can allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us and to show us the true perspective.
When I was in Honduras, we were working at a Christian school that also hosted youth nights. One night when we were praying before one of the youth nights a mob came to both of the gates of the fenced in facility and tried to break down the gates.
Our pastor told us what was going on and our response was not panic or worry but to pray. We trusted that God had brought us there to make an impact for Him and that He would protect us and He did.
As we were praying the Holy Spirit showed showed me a vision of the compound surrounded by 30 foot angels guarding and protecting us.
Not for one moment did I feel fear or worry because I knew God would protect us. The mob eventually dispersed and we were able to have the youth night.
God always provides for His children when we turn to Him.
So no matter where you are, what your doing, or how hopeless you feel you can always count on God to be there for you.
If you looked in a mirror and a list of your characteristics appeared what would it say? Would you use those words to describe Jesus?
This may seem like a lot of pressure. No one’s perfect, right.
But God doesn’t ask us to reflect Jesus on our own, but to die to ourselves and let Jesus live through us by listening to the guiding of the Holy Spirit.
Reflecting Jesus to others is not meant to be following a list of rules in the Bible, but listening to the Holy Spirit and testing what he is saying against the word of God given in the Bible.
Following Jesus is not a list of Do’s and Don’t but a relationship built by spending time getting to know the character of God so that we know who he is, how he would react and what he would say.
Reflect Jesus by knowing him, not by trying to imitate him.
God’s presence is the place where we find ourselves. He sees the mess and gives us the grace to overcome it and get out of it. He doesn’t want us to shove it aside or stuff it deep inside or try to fix it on our own. He wants it to be resolved and no longer affect us. So we don’t have to be ruled by our past mistakes or even the mistakes of others.
We get to choose.
Choose to let God’s grace be enough for us and for others. When we forgive, we free ourselves from being slaves to bitterness, anger, resentment and rage. It can no longer have power over us; because we won’t let it.
Finding our identity in Jesus makes us more us than we were before. He uniquely designed each of us and He know exactly what gifts and talents He gave us; to be and do what He designed us for.
When we choose to let God’s grace to be enough we are free to be who He intended us to be. To be loved, strong and confident and not held down; but to soar above the storms.
As the new year begins I encourage to make the same decision I did years ago; to surrender your life to Jesus. It can sound scary and intimating but it is truly the best decision I ever made.
I lived for years trying to do everything on my own, striving to try to achieve what I thought I wanted. But even when I achieved some of my goals they fell short of what I thought they would be.
But when I surrendered my life to God he changed everything. He gave me love and confidence to be who he made me to be. He gave me career opportunities I never would have picked for myself that turned out to be just what I needed and he picked the perfect husband for me, one that I never would of picked myself but is the perfect match for me. And he has blessed me in so many other ways in my life in ways I never thought I needed or wanted but were just what I needed when I needed it.
When we try to achieve our own goals we are influenced by others that have the same thing, but when we let God guide us he has already prepared a path for us that we probably would never of expected but is better then we ever could of thought.
Give God your dreams, your desires and your life and let him bless you beyond your belief.
We should not be afraid to share our faith in God, we should shout it from the rooftops. There is nothing wrong with it and we should not be afraid to share it. Our faith in Jesus changed our lives and we should share that.
Our fear comes from worry or fear of acceptance, but we are sharing about our God who takes those away from us. He came to give us peace, love and confidence and that’s what we should share.
For the days when you don’t know what to say or do, seek God and let him be your guide. Its amazing how much a moment in the presence of God can change everything
I love introducing people to ministries they may not have heard of I.H.O.P. is one of those, no, not the pancake place. The International House Of Prayer. They have worship and prayer 24/7. This video is of Misty Edwards at their 15th anniversary celebration.
In life we seek out love, we pursuit it, we desire it from our friends, family, and others but somehow it is never enough.
No matter who it’s from or how much we love someone, their love for us will never be enough. This is because we are meant to only be truly 100% fulfilled by God’s love. He created us and made us with a God shaped hole that can only be fulfilled by Him.
My whole life I pursued unconditional love from friends, family and others, hoping that I would find that person that filled the void.
But I never found that fulfillment from a person. And even though I have an amazing husband, what bonds us together the most is that we both came into our marriage knowing that only God could fulfill us. That’s why I call my husband the cherry on top of my sundae, because he’s the bonus, the blessing above the fulfillment I get from the love of God.
God’s love is the only love that has ever made me feel complete and wanting nothing. In His presence, He is all I want and all I need.
We can’t earn His love because He gives it freely.
God loves you! What could you lose by giving Him a chance to share His love for you with you?
I love gathering with family and helping prepare a huge meal for us all.
A thought, is to go into this season with thanksgiving to God for the family and friends he’s given you.
Don’t shy away from talking about him tomorrow, in fact I highly encourage trying to make him the focus of your thanksgiving. Maybe even take time out to sing a song of worship to him.
A family I hold dear to sings “O’Come let us adore him” before family meals.
It sounds weird but it brings so much joy and peace into the atmosphere of the room.
Try something different this year, be bold for Jesus and make him the center of the day of thanksgiving.
Seeking God just for who is, not for what he’s done or what you want him to do but just for who he is.
Spending time with him just because of who he is. Seeking him as a long lost friend you haven’t seen in a long time, with the joy and anticipation of his arrival, the nervous joy that builds up, the disregard for decorum when you embrace them at first sight.
We should seek God the same way each day, when we wake, treat each day like your a kid on Christmas morning, looking for the gifts he has for you that day, the joy of being in his presence the delight in opening up the surprises he has for us and the relief of being able to just rest in his presence.
Thankfulness builds joy. Just saying the word brings a smile to my face. There is always something to be thankful for, the sun on your face, the song of a bird near by, the beauty of the trees turning.
Somewhere in some way in your life God is always looking to bless you, to share his love for you, with you.
Thankfulness is about perspective. We can choose to be miserable and focus on what we don’t have or we can choose to find joy regardless of our circumstances.
We all have had times of need and of abundance, but its how we react that make the difference. We should be thankful in all things big or small blessings. Each day we wake up we can be thankful we have life. Each day is an opportunity to change our perspective.
The deep intimacy you experience when surrounded by God’s presence can only be called holy. Holy by Jesus Culture perfectly describes how his presence can engulf us, how intoxicating it can be, to the point of never wanting to leave it.
I call it the ‘jello effect’
When his presence is so thick in the room you feel as if you suspended in jello.
Don’t you want to experience that? Don’t you want to know and be with a God that can melt all your cares away, who can give you such peace and joy that it feels as if it will never end.
That’s the God that I worship.
Yes, he is Holy!
And he invites us into his presence, to the place where our whole world changes because he is Holy.
All you have to do is open the door and let him into your life, and believe in Him.
Take a moment to listen to this song and open yourself up to God, take down all the barriers and just focus on him.
Focusing on God and heaven may seem like your taking a break from reality. In some ways you are; being in the presence of God can make you forget about everything else and just focus on him.
But it also helps us to change our perspective.
When we allow ourselves to get caught up in all the things in the world we can lose sight of God and what he has for us.
Focusing your mind on things above isn’t about being disconnected from reality its about changing reality.
God is all around us, he created everything and if we take the time to slow down and look and listen he speaks to us through his creation. Sometimes it’s through nature and sometimes through people. No I’m not crazy.
I’ve just found that if I take the time to ask God to teach me something, he often does it through his creation.
When I first made the decision to turn my life back to God I became an intern at my church. At the start of the internship we went on a retreat to a beautiful lodge in the woods. Once we got settled we each took sometime to be alone with God. I decided to take a walk in the woods.
Photo by Matthew Brodeur
I was walking down a slight hill, having to watch where I was stepping because there was no path.
As I walked I noticed all the dead leaves and broken branches. I asked God where he was when I had turned away from him, when I had let so many of the dreams he’d given me die.
He explained that even though I had chosen to ignore him, he was there the whole time for every bad decision and wrong choice, but he helped guide me from some major pitfalls, just like I was avoiding stepping into some deep holes in my walk in the woods.
Photo by Sérgio Rola
On my return walk back up the hill God showed me all the plants that were growing up through the leafs. He explained that even though I had chosen to ignore him for so long he had planted seeds along the way and that they would grow and produce now that I had turned back to him.
Photo by Andreas Vendelbo
God will use the circumstances around us to teach us if we simple take to the time to acknowledge him and learn.
We often under estimate the impact of resting in Gods presence. When it’s what we need most.
When we are at our most desperate, when we feel lost or unsure. That’s when we need him most.
We don’t need to fix our problems before we go to him. Going to him is how we fix our problems.
Instead of dwelling and worrying. We should be dwelling in his presence and letting him show us his perspective that melts away the worry and anxiety. For nothing is too big for him to handle.
This verse is Elizabeth who became pregnant in her old age talking to, Mary the mother of Jesus, about her miraculous concept of Jesus.
This verse gives me strength because we have been trying to get pregnant since we got married in 2015. And even though I have not been blessed with a baby yet. I still trust God, I still love him and I still worship him. Because he is a good, loving God and I know that he has given me the dream to have children and he will bless me with them. But that doesn’t mean that I abandon him or just curl up in a ball and become bitter and angry because I don’t have what I want when I want it.
Instead I ask him ‘What he has for me right now?’ What do you want to teach me through this?’ ‘What do you want me to do in this time?’
In the six years from surrendering my life to Jesus and when I meet my husband, I wanted a husband through out that time, but God used that time to teach me, to change me and to invest in the lives of others. I could of done all that I did within a marriage but we would of had a lot of issues, we would of fought a lot, hurt each other and I would not of had the time to invest in the others like I did during that time. God knew what he was doing, his timing is perfect.
So I trust him in his timing now. He’s given me the call to write, so I write this blog and I working on getting my first of many books ready to submit for publishing. I preach and speak at any opportunity given, because I love to share what God has done in my life and that he can do the same and more in others. I use the time he’s given me to do what he’s called me to.
What constraints have you put on God? Are you holding yourself back because you think God can’t do it through you? What does God have for you right now in this moment? Ask him.
Just because you don’t have what you asked God for right now, doesn’t mean he’s not giving it to you.
His timing is perfect. He know what we need when we need it. Trusting his timing can be hard if we focus on what we don’t have. But if we focus on what he is doing on our life right now, what we are waiting for won’t take as long as we think it will.
