Transcription
Amen. Here's a verse I want you to have a look at, just for a moment, in Acts 3 and verse 19. And it says this: "Times of refreshing will come from the presence of the Lord." Times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, not from going to meetings, not from doing all this kind of thing or lots of things. It comes out of an engagement with a person, engagement with the presence of God.
We're going to talk today about the presence of God. And then I want us, for us, to go back into that song. I want us to reach out for an experience personally with the presence of God. And notice what it says: times, not just one, but experiences of being refreshed. That word refreshed means to be able to breathe again, to come alive again, to revive again, to revive in your spirit, to revive in your vision, to revive in your dreams, to revive in your energy, to revive in purpose again. God wants to revive you, get your life focused, and up. Giftings restored and revived, starting to move in the spirit, starting to see divine breakthroughs. It doesn't just happen. It happens when we engage with God and step out by faith to make different things happen this year. You say, "Amen." That right?
So notice here, it's coming out of the presence of God. We saw Pastor Dave spoke on that word presence, meaning face by face. It's very clear that God is omnipresent. In other words, He's everywhere. We can't go anywhere that He is not present. But His tangible presence, where He manifests His presence, that is precious and that is something to crave after and long after in your personal prayer life. Not just to have a time of prayer, but to experience the presence of God. To have the presence of God in your home. You go to some places and you can literally feel there's a peace in the place. Presence of God brings peace. You can go into some homes and you see there's like a joy in the atmosphere. The presence of God brings that joy. But it doesn't just happen. It happens because we cultivate it.
And so the presence of God, the tangible presence of God. Moses said, he said this: "He said, 'Your God spoke to me,' he cried out, and he says, 'I'm not going anywhere unless Your presence is with us.'" And God said, "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest." In other words, you'll be at peace in the midst of all the challenges of life because of the presence of God you're experiencing in your life. And it's not some head thing. This is a reality. The presence of God brings a peace in our heart. It settles our heart because Jesus Himself is the Prince of Peace. You want peace in your heart. Peace is found in a person, not trying to control life and make it all work for you.
See, notice in Exodus, it says in 33:16, "How will it be known that Your people and I have found grace?" Grace means favor, acceptance. It means empowerment to succeed in life. It means to be treated as someone precious. "How will it be known that we have found grace with God, and that we are distinct as a people, except the presence of God is found with us?" That's what makes an individual's life different. That's what makes a church different. That's what makes, if you're leading a business or teaching in a school, that's what makes what you do different. The blessing, the favor, the hand of God is upon it. You want to treasure that, not just working harder, but having God's hand upon you.
It says of Joseph that God, the favor of God was with him. And it says that he found favor in the sight of the, the, the household of the butler. He found favor in the sight in the prison of the prison officer. How did he find favor and sight? They saw God was with him. So when God is with you, it shows up in what happens in your world. It shows up in little ways that people can sense you're different. We need the presence of God to find favor. Means people look upon you, they want to help you. And we need that, the presence of God.
So, so, uh, in the Bible, it tells us that that he sought very much. He said, "Lord, show me Your glory." I've seen You do things. I've seen the gifts operate. I've seen miracles. But I want to see Your glory. Show me Your glory. And God said, "I will show you all My goodness." The glory of God is all that He is. It's His goodness manifested in a way you can experience it. How we need that! It's more than just the miracles. It's actually the tangible presence of God coming and transforming our lives. That word glory means literally the weight of God. It means the honor of God. It means the splendor of God. The word literally means to experience a weight. You know that person carries weight, the influential. So when the presence of God comes or the glory of God comes, sometimes you feel like a weight comes on you. You're in worship and you feel like, oh, I feel like I'm bending down. It's not something physical. It's something spiritual happening. You're feeling the presence and weight of God upon your life. How many have had that experience? How many know what that's like? See, lots of you have. We need to have more of it in this coming year, don't we?
See, so, so you notice there, then the presence of God will change us. It brings a transformation. It brings victory over our enemies. It brings healing. It brings deliverance. It brings open, open doors into the financial area. It brings an enlargement in our lives. It shifts our vision. We're living in a place that's very, very small thinking. If you want bigger thinking, get into the presence of God. Get into the word of God and let God help you dream bigger dreams. See, don't be contained where you are with the limits. People say here, you've got to be a person of vision, a bigness of thought and heart. So that, and that comes out of the presence of God. Cuz God is so big. You get around big people, you realize, man, I'm a little small in my thinking. I need to get a bit bigger. How many know you need to get a bit bigger this year? He, some of you, a circle of people that you connect with needs to get bigger. Some of you need to connect with bigger, more successful people, not being insecure in their presence, but be challenged to become bigger. Be, become bigger. You get bigger by going to bigger things and hanging around bigger people. You don't get, you don't get bigger by hanging around the people you feel cozy with. They're going the same place you're going, and you're going where they're going. If you want to become, go somewhere different, you need to actually connect with people that are bigger. So one of the ways we do that is we connect with God and His bigness in our personal life, personal relationship.
So the glory of God is so, so important. We're called to be carriers of that glory. And I'm going to show you just in a moment what happens when that glory lifts off. In the Old Testament, the Bible tells us that the priests carried a box called the Ark. The Ark was a golden, was a, a box, wooden box covered in gold. It actually was a prophetic picture of Jesus Christ Himself. It was made of wood, acacia wood. It was covered with gold on the inside and the outside, which is a picture of His human, His divinity. So Jesus, human and divine. Within that, there was the Ten Commandments, the tablets, the word of God. Jesus said, "I am the word of God. The words that flow out of My life are spirit and they are life." Life inside it. There was the, uh, uh, the manna that was found in the wilderness. The bread. Jesus said, "I am the bread of life." There was Aaron's rod that had budded supernaturally, a dead stick, and it budded in the presence of God. So the Ark symbolized and was a prophetic picture of Jesus Christ. And they said, "You, you, you had to be this Ark." This Ark had to be carried in a certain way. It was carried by people called priests. The Old Testament, only certain people were priests. And so it was their responsibility to carry the Ark of God, to carry this Ark. And the Ark upon it was the tangible presence of God. It had a gold seat over the top, and that seat was called the Mercy Seat. That's where blood was put. That's where every year the sins of everyone were forgiven over it. With cherubim, speaking, shapham speaking, or angel speaking of the covering that's over the throne of God. This was a picture into heaven of what God is like. And everywhere they took that Ark, the glory of God came. This is a very, you want to study and look at some of these pictures. But it's a picture of Jesus Christ. Because in the New Testament, every person, every believer is a priest to God. Every believer is the temple of God. Every believer carries the presence of God. God's Spirit joined to your spirit. You are a carrier of the presence of God. But with that presence manifest depends on the life you live and what you do as a believer, as a priest of God.
In the Old Testament, they lost the Ark and they lost the presence of God. I want to share with you some reasons that they lost it, because we can individually now. God is not going to leave us. He said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." So God is never going to abandon us. We're in covenant with Him. The old covenant, it depended on your behavior. What you did then could bring blessing or bring cursing. In the new, in the New Covenant that we have, Jesus did it all for us. I need to be in a place of faith and believing the promises of God and walking in them. Quite a different covenant. So in the New Covenant, we're not going to lose the Holy Spirit, but we can lose the favor, the blessing, the tangible awareness of God's presence. When that happens, very, very serious. So how did that happen and what did it do? Can be lost. I've seen it lost. Did you know when I first was invited to come to Hastings to a church that was here, and I came into it, and there was a prophetic ministry? And I sat down in it. My role was to prophesy of people. And as I sat there, the Lord spoke this word to me: "Ichabod." "The glory has departed." The presence that was there has lifted off that church. And I didn't think too much of it at the time. I just, that's all I heard. I'm in a prophetic flow. And then some months later, they said that the church had collapsed. Bob Hamilton had made contact with oversight to ask if we could bring someone else in. And then a message came to invite me if I would come and take the pastorate of what was there, a church that was in enormous distress, incredible distress. It was in debt. All over town, you couldn't buy anything on credit. I had to go and pay cash for everything we did. We were in deep distress and on the verge of bankruptcy. See, when the glory lifts, everything goes downhill. Everything that you enjoyed. It's like the enemy wants to now not just take you out of your place and take things of God away. He wants now to show to God he could never do anything with you. And so when we came here, the one thing I knew, I didn't know a lot about building a church, but the one thing I knew was needed was that we restore the presence of God. That we build strong prayer, we build strong worship, and we bring freedom into the house and remove some of the things that had been established that were hindering the church growing. How about that? And here we are.
So, so let me just go back to that scripture there in 1 Samuel 4:21 and 22. And it's the word this, where you see the word Ichabod, which is a Hebrew word meaning "the glory has departed." Look at this. And she named the child Ichabod, saying, "Glory has departed from Israel because the Ark of God had been captured," because of her father-in-law and her husband. And in verse 22, and she said, "The glory has departed from Israel, for the Ark of God has been captured." So notice what's happened now. Israel has been facing their enemies, the Philistines. And they had this great idea: "Let's get the Ark, and we'll bring it out, and we'll take it there and bring it out, and all the enemy will fall before us." In other words, they become very religious in their thinking. And what happened was, instead, the enemy won and took the Ark. And so now the nation is in devastation. And so this woman gives birth, and she calls the child's name Ichabod, meaning on this day, the glory of God has left Israel. We are now defeated before our enemies. They suffered, they went through all kinds of trouble. But here's the issue: how did the glory depart? And what can we do to engage and increase the presence of God? Those are two questions. What caused it to depart? See, when you see people fall away from God, watch what happens in their life. It's not like people just leave church or leave God. They run down, they run down rapidly. And you look at what's happened in their lives and the problems they have, and you realize, this is scary. I don't ever want to find myself down there like that. I want to stay near to the Lord. He's my protection. He's my life. Okay.
So how did they lose? What happened that caused them to lose that presence of God? Now remember, we won't lose the Holy Spirit, but we can lose the blessing, favor of God in our life and can come into bondage to demons, sin, addictions, all kinds of things. See, so once you fall out of that flow, then you find yourself in a desperate situation. So how come they lost what was so precious? How come they lost the presence of God? So I went through and had a look through it, and I found about six different things. And you think, well, yeah, we'd never do that. Actually, it's so easy to do what they did. Now, just remember, we're looking at an Old Testament picture. The Ark was a physical box which the presence of God would manifest on. The priests were specific people. Now today, we are the priests, and we have the presence of God dwelling within us. So what they lost, they lost all of the presence of God. They lost the Ark and the presence of God. They came into terrible bondage. But we can lose that favor, blessing, and ourselves come into bondage, bondage to sin, to sicknesses, to demons, to poverty, destruction, broken family, broken marriage, all kinds of things. Now, why do they lose this? Here it is. Now, all falling away from God, all losing the presence of God, starts in in your heart. It always starts in your heart. Here's number one.
Number one: Familiarity. What is familiarity? Okay, what is familiar? Familiarity means you get accustomed to something or someone, and then you lose respect or honor or value for them because you're used to them. You've been, we can, we can become familiar with people. If we're familiar with people, we kind of got used to them, and then we lost respect for them. We lost appreciation for what they carry, what they give. This is a big issue in New Zealand. Familiarity and dishonor. When you become familiar and lose respect and lose honor, you stop, literally stop, what God has gotten their life from flowing to you. Even Jesus, when He came into His hometown, the power of God was there to touch people. Nothing happened because of the dishonor and familiarity that came in His hometown. So think about this: would you and I, could we become familiar? Yeah, we can drift into into a church service and forget it's not about a meeting, like going to a public meeting, a school meeting, or some other meeting. This is about coming to engage a person called Jesus Christ. It's about coming to engage a royal King. This is about coming to meet with someone who has power to change our life and future. This is coming to meet someone who gave His life for us. So when we come, we don't want to come familiar. Familiar? Ah, yeah, sounds, yeah, sounds on the door. We forget that actually, for all of this to happen, there were people who did things. There's some people looking after children. There's some people up here at the back working. There's some people were in the car park who aren't in the meeting. There's lots of things that we become familiar with them and don't even say hello to them. Can you understand? Being familiar is a very deep problem of coming, you becoming so used to someone you take them for granted and disrespect them. When you start to do that, then everything begins to change. So when we take for granted the musicians, take for granted the worship team, take for granted the people who do things to make things happen, then something changes. We lose connection and the release of what they have to give to us. So that was their first problem. They became familiar. They became familiar day in, day out going in, and they became familiar with what was happening. And when we become familiar, then we lose personal boundaries. We begin to take advantage of people, exploit people. Terrible thing to do. So you, we can lose or become familiar with God and lose our respect for Him. So that's why I like to come dressed up. I come dressed up not because it's church, I want to dress up. I come because I want to meet with someone. I want to look my best. I want to be best for. I come with my heart prepared because I'm coming to meet someone important. I don't want to waste half an hour while I try to get myself woken up. I want to come alive, awake, ready to engage my King. You said this is, see. So familiarity can cause you to lose all of that respect, and that in the end causes the, the, the presence of God to lift away from your life. You don't engage Him. See.
So, so the first is familiarity. The second one, in 1 Samuel 2:12, "The sons of Eli were corrupt; they did not know God." Familiarity leads to taking someone for granted. We don't pray, we don't prepare our heart, we lose our willingness to sacrifice and give. And so what happens then? Our relationship with the Lord begins to deteriorate, and we begin to lose the close connection. When we take them for granted, God will not let you take them for granted. He just won't let you. What you'll do is you'll just draw back a bit, so you're struggling, and so you're finding life is a lot harder. You're finding you're not aware of the presence of God anymore. He's not that He left you. He just drew, withdrew your awareness of His presence. He hid Himself a little till you'd wake up and get to realize, man, life's hard. I need to draw near to God. See. So, so we need to draw near, need to, need to not lose that relationship. And we can lose it very easily. Grieve the Holy Spirit. How many of you know how to grieve the Holy Spirit? Well, it's in our attitudes to people, the way we talk to people, the way we run down people, way we criticize people, why we talk about people. All of that disrespects they are the temple of God, disrespects they are part of God's family, and God withdraws from us. See, this is a serious thing. If you want, you got, you got to realize that when you meet people, especially meet believers, these are children of God. These are temples of God. They're carrying the life of God. Treat them with honor. Treat them with respect as members of your Father's family. When you meet those who are unsaved, they're on the stage where they're ready to become the family of God. So treat them with honor too, cuz Jesus did, cuz He ate with them and loved them and worked with them and helped them.
Okay, here's another reason, uh, that, and this is a big one. In 1 Samuel 2:15, "And before they burned the fat, the priest's servant would come and say to the man who sacrificed, 'Give me the meat you brought as a sacrifice for roasting to the priest. He'll not take boiled meat from you, but raw.'" So here's what they did: entitlement. They become entitled. I think I'm owed. Being entitled is a sort of an expectation. People or God or the pastor or the church or someone owes me. You understand? When you have that entitlement around you, you are ungrateful for what you have. You don't enjoy what you have. You just always expecting and wanting more and annoyed, irritated, angry, or embittered that it's not coming to you. So entitlement is where I expect, I'm owed. You know, something, I, I am not owed anything by God. He's already given me the gift of life. And if He's given me the life of His Son, I owe Him everything. You understand? And, and so one of the things that we did when we handed over the church to Dave and Kate was I said this: I said, "The church does not owe us anything. We were called to serve God. We want you to know that we release the church and the city. This is our gift to the city, our gift to God's people. This is nothing we're expecting something back. Anything that we receive is something you gave. The opportunity to preach here is an honor and an opportunity that Pastor Dave and Kate have given me, but it's just not something that I assume or act entitled." Entitlement destroys relationships because you take people for granted and put a demand on them, and they resent it, and then it breaks down all the relationships.
Okay, here's another thing. Uh, so when we're when we're entitled, we just basically disregard others. It's all about me. Okay, here's another one. Here's another one: stealing from God. It says before verse 15, "Before they burned the fat, the priest's servant would come and say to the man who sacrificed, 'I want you to give me for roasting, give me meat for roasting for the priest. He won't take boiled meat from you.'" And then he said in verse 16, "If you won't give it to me, I'll take it by force." So the sin of the, of the young men was very great before the Lord, for the men despised the offering of the Lord. So notice here what they did was, once they became entitled, then they started to take what should have been given to God. They took from others what others wanted to give from God. See. And so when we start to take what belongs to God, we take the credit, we take all the honor. When we hold back what we've been given and never honor Him without giving, then we're stealing from God. In Malachi, He has an issue with all of the priests of that day because they would withhold what they were supposed to give to the Lord. And He said, "Will a man rob God?" So what do we owe God? We owe Him honor. We owe Him honor. We owe Him our life. We owe Him gratitude. We owe Him availability to make what we have available for His work. You understand? These are, this is what it means to walk with God. And so what happened was they took what belonged to God. So when we withhold from God, God, in any form, something that belongs to Him, then we are robbing God, and the presence of God begins to lift off us. So I want to always honor Him. I want to always come with something to give. I want to give Him praise. I want to give Him worship. I want to give Him gifts. I want to give, in, in different ways. We want to honor God. That's how you attract His presence. These are the things that draw the presence of God. That's how we have the presence of God. So they withheld. So when we withhold from God. So I want you to think then, just about in your financial area, do you make any room for God in that? Do you see yourself as the owner and therefore entitled, or do you see yourself as the steward and therefore honor towards God is required? It's just how you see it. If you're entitled, then it's all yours. Okay, go for it. Do the best you can. But don't expect that the presence of God and favor of God will rest on us. See, you understand? So when I give something to God, it's not, I'm giving really. This is His portion. This is what I give to Him because I'm honoring and recognizing everything comes from Him. If I've got something, then I can give Him a bit because it all came from Him. I'm just honoring that He's the source. That makes sense. So you just got to, you got to think that through.
So, so for us, uh, giving in various forms is, is actually part of walking with God. It's not a duty thing. It's not a have to. Uh, if it was tough, it wouldn't work. Worry me, but it's actually a lifestyle of honor of God and making sure then that we give Him the first place, give Him the first fruits, give Him the very best. And then when we do that, then God comes. Okay, here's another thing that they did. There was immorality. It said there, "They began to lie with a woman at the entrance of the Tabernacle." Now, this is a serious thing. I could spend a lot on just, if I just identify just this. This is number one: immorality. Number two: abuse of a title position. And sadly, there's a lot of that going on and being exposed all around the world. That caused the presence of God to be grieved and to lift off. And finally, there was pride. There was resistance to any forms of correction. So we want to, we don't want to be like that. Now, why is that story in there? Why are all those things in there? Very simple: don't do what they did. Don't do what they did. Don't do what they did. What happened to them in some form will happen to you. That's what the Bible is. It says it's full of, uh, example illustrations that show us what to do and what not to do. So when you look at the Old Testament, those stories, there's priests and they dishonored God and they lost the presence of God, and everything went downhill for them and the nation. So what we want to now, I'm living here. I'm not going to lose God, but I can lose His presence. I can lose the flow of His blessing. I can lose His favor. I can end up in a terrible, terrible state, very, very easily if I do what they did. If I begin to become familiar with God, if I begin to withhold from God, if I begin to despise the things that are of God. So, so that's how we do it. We, that's why we want to give Him our best. We always want to give Him our best. He's a great and, uh, royal King.
So, so what, how can I then attract and engage and carry the presence of God? I want to share with you three broad areas that, that, that affect God being around our life. If I want more of God around my life, I just need to be rich in these things. So the first is heart attitude. Your attitude. Your attitude. Now think about this: in every relationship, your attitude to the person affects how they respond to you, isn't that true? Is it not true? You can pick up the attitude of people to you, and you respond because of the way they are treating you. Usually, that's how, that's how life works. But in God, there's some similar things here. So number one is attitude. There are attitudes. Our attitude to God is how we view God, or the way you approach Him. So here's three things we need to have in our heart in approaching God. Number one is hunger. Hunger for God attracts His presence. He doesn't come because there's need. He comes because we long for Him. We are hungry for Him. We are hungry not for a prophecy, not for some miracle, not for some healing. We're hungry for Him, for the person. And just the same, when people long to meet you, they're happy to meet you, they're glad that you came, then they always show it in some kind of way. You meet someone who's traveled to meet you, you always express it in some kind of way. And so, uh, you express what's in your heart. And so one of the first things is hunger for God. So, uh, in Matthew 5:6, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." That word hunger means to crave or desire, or to feel empty, to feel a lack. When you feel empty, when you feel a lack, when you know that what I need is a fresh touch of God, that hunger will cause you to draw near to God. David said, "One thing I desire, that will I seek after." So when we are hungry and want more of God, we will do the things like fasting, prayer, and reading the word of God and journaling, those kind of things that draw us near to God.
Here's another heart attitude, and that is one of faith. In Hebrews 11, uh, verse 6, "Without faith, it is impossible to please God. He that comes to God must believe He is, and He rewards those who diligently seek Him." So here's the thing: sometimes when you come and you pray, you don't feel anything. In fact, you feel like God is so far away. And that's not that God is far away. It's just you've got a demonic atmosphere around you, and that demonic atmosphere pushes on you to make you feel disconnected. And the only thing that'll overcome that is your faith. The demonic atmosphere will push on you and cause you to feel like God doesn't like you, God doesn't care about you, God doesn't want you. You've done something wrong. All your things that you failed in will come up in your mind. Where are they all coming from? They're not coming from God. God says this: He said, "If you want to come to Him, believe that if you diligently press in, if you persevere, you will experience Him." So our prayer times need a measure of perseverance because there is resistance. It tells us in Hebrews 4 and verse 16, "Let us, let us come boldly to the throne of grace." So when you come, you don't come in a religious way. We come confident. Confident in what? Confident that a way is made. No matter what's happened, no matter how much I fell, no matter how much went wrong, no matter what mistakes I made, I am confident Jesus has made a way. I believe that. I will not be put down by my failures and mistakes. I will act as one who has access. You understand? It's very important to do that. He said, "And we come that, where are we coming to? The throne." That what? See, you know the words, but what you're coming to is the seat of government and all power, all ability, the center of go, of all of creation, the seat of God's power, surrounded by. We to come to that and receive empowerment and forgiveness. So it doesn't matter what kind of mess your life has been. God invites you to believe. If you will believe, not if you'll do better, if you will believe Christ has made a way for you, then step in. "Father, I boldly come into Your presence. I come as raw family. I come as a child of God. I come into Your presence. I honor You, my God and my Father." See, see, you come with this kind of attitude on the inside. You know, you heard, you got a kid that's got a bit of attitude. You notice, you notice the attitude, don't you? Some kids, you don't notice. Some others, got attitude, you notice. You know, if you want to get somewhere in life, want a bit of attitude. You know, you want a winning attitude. Yeah, we hear a win. It's an attitude. It's a, it's a disposition, an approach. So we come to God. We have, first of all, these attitudes of hunger. I want Him. I need Him. I play songs like that, so my heart comes alive with that. Uh, we come with faith in the heart, believing if I press in, if I pray, I will experience God's hand coming around my life. See, these are very, very important keys to come into the presence of God. Always coming with that hunger, that expectation, and belief, and with honor. We always come with honor, 'cause He's a great King. So you come and honor Him. The Bible's very clear on that. It says, uh, in Mark 6:9, "In this manner, pray: Our Father in heaven, we honor Your name." So, our very, very first thing is our approaching God, not with all our problems, all our difficulties, all our challenges, everything went wrong in life. There's heaps of that. Don't need to talk about that. Why don't I come? Actually, I come with an attitude of hunger for God, hunger to engage Him, hunger to hear His voice. I'm coming to honor Him. I'm coming with expectation. He will do something. I don't know when or how I do it, but I expect He will do it because His word says He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Now, notice these are the dispositions that you come into the presence of God with. That's how you best encounter Him. Religion will teach you to come with your head down and all ashamed and come slow and quiet. God doesn't do it that way at all. That's not how you approach God. See, He's a great King, and you're His family. He expects you to approach with those kind of things. I'm hungry. I want You. Yeah, there's lots of things attractive, but it's You I want. I want to experience You. I want to feel Your presence. Amen. Okay, that that passion inside, He notices, and He comes to it. Sometimes it takes a bit of praying before you start to feel the flow of that in your spirit. That's all right. You persevere. And, and so, and how does He tell us to come? Then He also tells us what we do. That's a bit that, that a lot of people miss. He tells us what to do. Psalm 95 and Psalm 100: "This is how you come in: Come into His gates with Thanksgiving, and His courts with praise." So we come. They need to bring Him something. Thank You, Jesus. I'm glad we've got such great musicians. We can come, and you can actually give a great offering of praise and celebration. The Bible tells us in Psalm 22:4, "He inhabits," or "He is enthroned in our praises." Now, what this means is very simply, they're using Old Testament language. What it means is simply this: is when you come and build an atmosphere of praise, you start to become conscious of God's presence because His presence becomes more tangible when the atmosphere is filled with praise. When there's praise, celebration, free sound, the presence of God seems to inhabit it, and you get affected by it. You walk in, you feel the presence. Something shifts in you. You start to feel alive. You start to feel the joy. Start to feel lifted up. Things start to shift. What's happening? You're feeling the presence of God. There's like a shift or likeness comes, and even demons lift off your life at that time. And suddenly you kind of feel, I'm, my head's clearing. I'm starting to see things a bit better now. That, see, see, we come into His gates with Thanksgiving. So come, be grateful. One of the things is, as you pray in tongues, you're expressing gratitude. You're blessing God. Well, 1 Corinthians 14:16, "When I pray in an unknown tongue, I am blessing God and thanking Him." So we pray strongly. We pray from our spirit. We give Him a great shout, a happy sound. That's why I love the music. When the music gets free, and you want to dance, that's the sound God likes. It's the sound of freedom. Yeah, freedom has got a sound. It's joy and laughter and dancing. Yeah, a little more than the Trump dance, you know. You got to really be excited, loving God. And so now, what happens then? As you begin to praise, it may take a little while. And if the quality and the, and the prayer life of the musicians and team is good, then it doesn't take long at all. It comes straight in. Whoa, presence of God. It starts to feel it. And when I start to feel it, then you start to shift into a flow called worship. The word worship means, it comes from a word meaning to bow in reverence and respect for someone. The word worship in the New Testament means to kiss affectionately someone. See. So, so a lot of people, they're happy to sing the happy songs, or reluctantly sing the happy songs, don't realize as the presence of God comes, you shift your mode. Now it's about your heart loving on Him and worshiping Him, expressing your affection, your longing, your desire for Him. How wonderful He is. And so we choose songs that are like that. So you notice in the, the flow of it, it's not just this song, that like one too fast, one slow. It's not, it's not about that. It's about a flow of entry to a King. When you come into that place, you have to learn how to conduct yourself in the presence of the King. It says Moses, it says, "The Lord descended in a cloud and stood with him, and he bowed his head to the ground and worshiped." When Joshua encountered the Lord, he bowed to the ground and worshiped. When the woman with the, uh, alabaster box came, she took hold of His feet and kissed them and worshiped. The Book of Revelation, the angels bowed and worshiped. You see, it's very easy to become familiar. When you become familiar, you've forgotten who the person is that you're talking to. And I've noticed with important people, if you disrespect them, that's the last you ever get to be with them. It's true. I have seen people, uh, in Taiwan, and they're very, very important people, very, uh, high stature people. You have to know your place and know how to handle yourself in their presence. We need to learn how to handle ourselves in the presence of God, how to just bow and to worship and to just let Him know that we love Him very, very deeply. And it's at that time you'll start to hear Him. And I encourage you in this coming three weeks, not just to fast, but to seek God diligently. Put on music, and as you feel His presence and peace come, begin to bow and just worship Him. Love Him. Don't, don't draw back and want to sit down, but rather press in for more. Most people pull back just at the point where God is starting to touch them. Oh, touch God? Hey, praise the Lord. Sit down there. No, no, no, no. Stay there. Pray. Hunger. Give me more. I remember one of my daughters got caught up to heaven. She rang me up so excited and told me what happened. I said, "Did you ask questions?" "No, never thought to." I said, "Well, go back. Just go back in the spirit again and encounter God again, and this time engage Him and ask Him questions. Look around to see everything He's showing you, and engage with Him." That's what our relationship looks like. We engage and talk, and we hear. What wouldn't this be a great year if every person started to deepen their walk with God and engage His presence and become a carrier of the presence of God? Amen. There's lots of other things I could share, but that's enough for today. There are other keys to carrying the presence of God, but to engage Him, it's an attitude, hunger, faith that He's going to do this, see, honor. And so we come with all of those things. What's your hunger level like? This will be a great time to just say, "God, I want to repent of my carelessness, lack of prayer, lack of time with You. I want times of refreshing to come from the presence of the Lord." What about your, your, your honor? Have you become familiar and disrespectful? Are there any ways where you've actually taken God for granted and felt a little entitled and got compromised in your life? And you say, "God, I repent. I want times of refreshing to come from the presence of the Lord." And, and if your prayer time is fairly weak, why don't you start to give yourself to strong praise? Starting to put some music on that stirs your heart to thank God, be grateful to God. And then as you feel His presence, kneel and just worship Him. Just bow in His presence. Who are we talking to? He's called the King of Kings. Hallelujah! The Lord God Almighty reigns. I can feel His presence here right now. Why don't we stand? We're going to flow. I'd love to flow back into that song again. Hallelujah. Yeah, I know this. You know the song. Let's just stand. Presence of God is here already. So this is why don't we just worship Him with this song?
If you're here today and you don't know Jesus Christ, you're not yet a Christian, this will be a great opportunity for you to change. This would be a great opportunity for you to receive Jesus Christ, to come, open your life, and receive Jesus as your Savior. Start a life of walking with God instead of living alone and struggling with so many things. What a great day for you. Make the decision. What's holding you back today from making a decision to receive Jesus? If that's you today and you say, "I want to become a Christian. I want to live in the presence of God. I want to live in the blessing of God. I want to learn how to walk with God. I want to start that today and receive Jesus Christ." Would you come? Make your way to the front as we sing. Make your way and stand here at the front, and I will lead you in a prayer to receive Jesus. If you're here today and you know that today, I need your repentance somewhere in my life. I've become familiar. I've dishonored God. I want to come and put my life right with Him. Why don't you make your way to the front too? If you know you're struggling with oppression, you say, "I need a touch of God to set me free." Make your way to the front as we sing. Now come, come, come, come and say, "God, I'm hungry. God, I want You. I want that touch." He's come on. Let's do that now. For You are holy, are You the God Almighty? Worthy is the Lamb. Worthy is the Lamb. For You are holy. If you need to make a decision to receive Jesus, come now. Come now. God has loved you and wants to touch your life and change you. Make your way now. If you know there's an area of your life here in bondage, come now. If you know there's something you need to repent of, come now. Don't hold back. Holy are You, Lord God Almighty. Worthy is the Lamb. Worthy is the Lamb. For You are holy. [Music] Holy are You, Lord God Almighty. Worthy is the Lamb. Thank you, Lord. Close your eyes. Did anyone come to the front that was wanting to receive Jesus? I'd like to just wave. Give me a wave so I know. Just look at me and wave to me if you came to receive Jesus. God bless. I see. Okay. I want to lead us all in a prayer. Simple prayer. We can grow up in a Christian family. We can grow up in a church background, but that doesn't make us a Christian. A personal relationship with Jesus Christ does. Jesus said to everyone who received Him, made Him welcome, believed in His name, who He is to them, He gave power to become a child of God. All relationships begin with words. Just follow me in this prayer. Father in Heaven, I come to You in Jesus' name. I'm a sinner. I believe Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins and rose again from the dead. Today, Jesus, I receive You as my Savior. Jesus, I ask You to forgive all of my sins. I receive forgiveness. I receive Your Spirit into my life, and I give You my life today. I declare, I declare Jesus Christ is my Savior and Lord. I belong to the family of God. Amen. Amen. Amen. Come on, give a little [Applause] clap. Sarah, Sarah, you just need to come up here. Just have one person give a heart to the Lord. [Music] Lord. It's one of my beautiful granddaughters. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Jesus. Just close your eyes for a moment. Keep the music going. When we come into the presence of the Lord, I use my imagination to see what can't be seen with the natural eyes. Your imagination is a faculty of your spirit. So I see myself coming to the throne of grace, to an amazing, magnificent throne where Jesus is seated, and all of creation bows to Him. I imagine I'm surrounded by the angels, by other people who have gone before me. I'm in a very privileged position to be in the presence of the Living God. And sometimes, as I do that, I start to weep because as my mind and heart are fixed on Him, I feel Him. I can feel His love flowing right now. It doesn't matter if you made mistakes. It doesn't matter if you failed. It doesn't matter if you've got big glitches in your life, things are happening that you're not happy with. You have a God who loves you. Enjoy Him. We love You, Lord. We honor You. We thank You that right now Your presence is here to touch us, to help us. Need a Ministry team to come and just get ready to pray for people. We're not going to ask lots of things or talk lots of things. I want you to believe that the moment hands are laid upon you, that God's presence will come and touch you, minister to your needs. Can you do that? Ministry team, just please come quickly now. Just come and do that. And church, let's just stand in that place of worship right now. Musicians, just flow through for just a few more minutes. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord.