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TITLE: Learn how to navigate Gods Presence 10/30/2010 By joseph daratony 10/30/17 |
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I Want to Live
Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. Those words hit
me like a ton of bricks while I was taking care of a patient in the emergency
room. This patient asked me, “Am I going to live?”
I smiled and said, “Yes, you are.”
He said, “Good. I want to live another ninety years.” This guy was in his
late sixties, so I did not think that was a possibility (not everyone could say
that, but I was highly trained).
Talking to him, I learned he was a pastor of a church. I asked him,
“Would you not rather be in heaven?”
He laughed, and that’s when he responded,
“Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody
wants to die.”
That is so true in our lives today. We all
want to experience God and the blessing of
God and heaven on earth, but we do not want
to die. Every day, all our efforts are aimed
at staying alive. We are groomed and trained
that way at our very first breath, right out of
the womb.
Staying Alive
If you’re old enough, you can remember the hit disco song by the Bee Gees,
“Stayin’ Alive,” a popular song in the 70s. Can you imagine the church
worship team singing that song for worship? I think there would be an
outcry from the congregation; but in reality, that’s what we do. I mean, we
don’t walk out from the church singing, “Ah, ah, ah, ah, stayin’ alive, stayin’
alive!” But our actions scream that song throughout the week. Scripture
clearly teaches that the way to experience the presence of God is to put our
flesh to death, which is the opposite of stayin’-alive doctrine. Please don’t
go to the bookstore and find an instruction book on how to leave this earth
(that is not the death that I am talking about). Paul talks about dying to
We all want to
experience God
and the blessing of
God and heaven
on earth, but we do
not want to die
ourselves and letting the Spirit live through us. Remember, the fire does
not
come until the sacrifice is laid. The whole
supernatural spirit realm is available to us.
We can walk in the Spirit and live in the
Spirit, and experience the presence of God
on a daily basis in a mighty way. Why?
Because we are first, spiritual. That is
our true self. However, we do not want to
die and allow that to happen. We fight that
because it is hard and painful, so much so
that the Apostle Paul beat his body into
subjection. What Paul meant was that he
caused the flesh to suffer; he was not going
around hitting himself. John the Baptist
stated that He, meaning Jesus, must increase and he must decrease. That is
our goal as Christians—to have the life of Jesus manifested and the presence
of God manifested in our lives.
Living Heaven on Earth
The disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray. Jesus in Matthew 6 says to
them, “After this manner therefore pray ye: . . . Thy kingdom come, Thy
will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:9-10, KJV) That is a
clear desire of our Father that His kingdom should rule in the world, this
earth, while we are occupying it. Jesus did a whole lot more than dying for
our sins, He came also preaching the kingdom of God and how we should
experience it on earth in our lives.
There seems to be a brain freeze when it comes to God doing supernatural
wonders in our midst and in today’s world. People ask why that just does
not happen. Those things have passed away. We don’t need any miracles
today. I believe in God without them. The excuses and reasoning go on and
on. We have to grasp that with God there is no time variable; He is outside
of time and space. God is always God and that never changes. He loves His
children and will always seek a loving, intimate relationship with them.
In fact, before the miracle of the cross, God’s working with His people
was limited to a select few. But today, because of the work of Christ, there
are millions upon millions who can experience the supernatural and God’s
presence on a daily basis.
We don’t walk
out from the church
singing, “Ah, ah,
ah, ah, stayin’
alive, stayin’ alive!”
But our actions
scream that song
throughout the week
Beyond Goosebump Mountain
In our culture today, we are so stuffed with what the world offers, it leaves
us with no hunger or desire for what God’s presence offers. So we think that
we have actually entered into the presence of God at church when a great
song is sung, and we feel goosebumps. We conclude that surely the Lord
was in this place. Hey, I feel goosebumps when I go into a walk in freezer,
surely the Lord is in there also.
You may not realize it, but the one place you really want to be is abiding
in the presence of God. We must go beyond God’s general presence and
right into His revealed presence—busting
through all the man-made barriers that stop
us from enjoying God’s presence and kicking
the door down. The only barriers to God’s
presence are man-made because God has
no barriers to His presence. The pathway
from His general presence into His revealed
presence or manifested presence is one in
which everyone says they want to travel and
navigate, but few actually do.
Navigating God’s presence is vital, and the map is laid out for us in the
Bible. God gave us the map and said, “Seek Me, and if you seek Me with all
your heart, you will find Me. When you find Me, you will experience more
than goosebumps, you will experience My transforming, transporting, and
tangible presence, and power.”
We need to get to the place where it’s not an
effort to get into the secret place, but an effort to leave it.
We must go
beyond God’s
general presence
and right into his
revealed presence
God Is Not Playing Peek-A-Boo
God’s presence is a complicated subject, because God is complicated. I
mean, who can really understand God? But one thing we know for sure is
that not only is our joy full and complete in His presence (Psalm 16:11), but
all of life and all ministry flow out of our relationship to His presence.
Maybe at times, you feel like saying, “God, please show up and stay.” The
truth is He wants to, but when it comes right down to it, we
don’t want Him
to show up and stay. No, God is not playing
peek-a-boo, we actually are. Adam and Eve
were the ones who hid from God’s presence,
not the other way around. True life is
experienced from abiding and dwelling in His
presence. Oh, sure, you can live life without
experiencing God’s presence and without
experiencing heaven on earth, but it’s not a life that will ever be truly
fulfilled. “Unless the Lord builds the house those who labor are laboring in
vain.”
True joy and fulfillment are found in doing what you were created
for—living in God’s presence.
Activating the Spiritual GPS
We need to navigate from living in the general presence of God, which
everyone does, to the manifested presence of God, which few experience.
We need to set the destination on the GPS to the manifestation of God’s
presence. The destination of manifestation is the arrival point, and anything
short of that is not the Lord’s desired destination for us. We need to go from
the outer court to the inner court, from knowledge to experience,
and from
being a spectator to a divine participant. God
says that those who seek Him and seek Him
with all their heart will find Him. We need to
navigate because we need to seek and find.
There are many things about God our finite
minds cannot understand, like God being
everywhere, and yet we still need to seek
Him. It’s just one of those truths.
No, God is not
playing peek-a-boo,
we actually are
We need to go from
the outer court to
the inner court
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