The Presense of Yahweh (2/21/11)

Shalom,

 

    Please begin by reading Psalm 89:14-18.

 

    We Christians start out our life with Yahweh, our Great God Almighty, at a great advantage.  He already lives inside of us.  What we need to work harder at is abiding in him.  As we become more faithful in learning how to abide in the presence of our loving Father, it's important to understand that it will best happen as we learn to overcome human limitations.    The possibilities of what can happen when we fully surrender to the Lordship of our Savior Jesus are endless and absolutely amazing.

    Yahweh has given himself to us in full measure.  There's much more available to us that we normally access.  Yet what we partake of him from day to day is measured by our level of seeking him.  The more we hunger and seek for his presence, the deeper our relationship with him becomes, and the better we'll be able to acces all he's provided.  The measure of Yahweh that we access is fully determined by ourselves.  Allowing us more than we can manage is like giving power tools to toddlers.  He'll only entrust us with as much of himself as we can contain and manage with maturity.  Much of that will be based on how much we hunger and thirst to be in his presence frm day to day.

    Yes, sometimes our Father will totally overwhelm us with his Spirit.  He occasionally does things that short-circuit our human senses and leave us stunned and astounded.  There are times when our worship and prayer truly reaches heaven and Yahweh's glory falls.  Since we're still living in human flesh this normally causes us to be slain in the Spirit or like the priests at the dedication of the Temple we'll be unable to enter and do our service.  But on a more regular basis, the level of contact is set by our attitude and action.

 

    Bill Johnson said: "One of the conflicts we face in learning to host the presence is sometimes found in the very lessons we learned from previous seasons.  Believe it or not, those principles sometimes war against the actual presence of the Lord upon us.  We are to use principles to plan, but we must learn to live from the presence.  If there's a conflict between the two, presence always wins out over principle."

    We sometimes miss out on fresh new revelation because we're stuck in the revelation of the past.  We may misunderstand a new encounter with Yahweh because we try to view it through an old encounter's perspective.  As humans we're much to quick and dogmatic about how we experience the presence of our Magnificent God.  He's not into doing things the same old way every time he draws near to us.  There be some familiar sensations, but don't expect it to happen exactly the same way every time.  Yahweh is God of the new, and the words we find in the Bible mostly point to renewed or refreshed rather than brand new things.

    Lam 3:22 says, "Yahweh's compassions never fail.  They are new every morning."  New here means refreshed, renewed, or restored.  Whatever we wasted of his goodness yesterday doesn't matter today because he'll provide for us afresh and anew if we seek his presence.  Our loving Father reestablishes his goodness each new day.  If we'll fully surrender ourselves to serving him again, he'll provide fresh supplies and resources and opportunities.  Isn't it great toget  second and third and fourth and 862nd chances?

    Col 3:10 instructs us to "put on the new self."  This is the Greek word NEOS.  It also means a fresh, new start.  It's connected to the word neophyte, which refers to a newly converted person or new growth on a plant.  Our new self isn't brand new, it's refreshed and restored, brought back to more of its original design.  But if we want some of that new growth to be sprouting on us we have to seek and pursue more of the presence of Yahweh without getting hung up on what we've experienced in the past.  It's good to know where we came from, but we must remember to be seeking our loving Father's direction and accepting it even when it's new and different than in the past.

    We're supposed to be well grounded in what Yahweh has said so that we can continue to discern what he's saying right now.  If we determine everything based on old revelation, we can't move forward with our Lord very well.  If we make our determinations based on old revelation, we may end up in conflict with the Holy Spirit.  If we're rightly hosting the presence of Yahweh we won't get caught up in the past, but we'll move steadily with him into the future.  What happened to us in the past, especially the good things of the Spirit, are important to remember and celebrate.  But it seems too easy for us to then dwell there and stagnate.  Keep moving witht he Spirit or you'll eventually find yourself clinging to a dead and decaying memorial of your faith.

 

    If Jesus were with you physically 24/7, every minute of every day, would your life change?  What would you do differently?  What would you leave the same?  Would he want to hang around with you?

    If we work at abiding in the presence of our Lord and Master, we'll begin to move away from the lifestyle of sinners.  Think back to the beginning of your Christian walk.  Did some of your old friends reject you?  Did some of your family members work at avoiding you?  Did you struggle to remove yourself from some worldly situations because of your spiritual immaturity?  As we begin to move away from our previously sinful lifestyles to draw closer to Jesus, most of the time we lose some relationships with those still caught up in the world.  But as we mature we begin to realize that pleasing our Father is much more important than appeasing our former friends.

    One of the hardest things for us to learn is that we can't fall into the trap of putting our stamp of approval on sinners to keep from offending them.  We must speak the truth to them and not give them tacit approval by not condemning their lifestyles.  When they ask questions like, "You don't really believe I'm on my way to Hell?"  We need to be truthful and say yes.  Please also use the discernment the Holy Spirit provides so you can tailor your words to your audience.  But the bottom line is that they're sinners in need of the Savior.  We must be honest with them that they're living apart from their Father, their Creator God.  We must speak truthfully about them being in violation of his holy and righteous standards.

    Psalm 1:1 warns us against joining in with scoffers.  We need to hate the awful condition of lost sinners.  We're still to love and serve them by sharing the Gospel with them, but we must separate ourselves from their worldy attitudes and philosophies.  We can't sit where they sit or think like they think ro do the same sort of things they do.  Avoid the places where ungodly things are prominently celebrated

 

    Whatever we truly delight in is our passion.  Yahweh is supposed to be that passion.  There are those who love music or love sports or love working with their hands or love many other things.  But our first love is supposed to be our Lord Jesus.  Our life should revolve around thoughts of him.  Scripture clearly tells us that we should be hungering and thirsting to spend time with him.  He's to be our first and greatest love.

    Matt 6:21 says, "Wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will be also."  People know what you really have a passion for by watching and listening to you.  Whatever it is that stirs your heart the most will bubble out in your conversations and will be seen in what you pursue most regularly.  Whatever our passion is will come out through many areas of our lives.  If we truly love Jesus, other people will know this without us having to tell them.

    Yahweh is also supposed to be our point of focus.  Everywhere we turn our world is trying to draw our attention, to get us to focus on something worldly.  They want us to concentrate on being good consumers of their products, or believers in their way of thinking, or followers of their style of leadership.  All those commercials on TV and within our print media are trying to get us to buy specific products, with specific brand names.  The devil is also trying to get us to buy his products and his worldview and his bondage.  In Psalm 119:97 Yahweh points out that we should be meditating on him all day long.  We need to be concentrating on him, not the world.

    Our loving heavenly Father desires to spend quality time with each and every one of us.  He hungers for intimacy, but he only gets what each of us individually allows.  We sing about wanting to know him more, but then we pull back and deny him time or space.  We sing about being sold out and committed and surrendered, but then keep Yahweh out of certain portions of our lives.  We need to be giving him much more than lip service.  Jesus quoted Isa 29:13 when he told some Pharisees and religious teachers, "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me" (Matt 15:8).  You can know that your Father in heaven won't be pleased with you when he recognizes this half-hearted attitude.

    We just need to quit being so human.  Our inherent selfishness keeps us from enjoying the splendors of soaking in the presence of our loving Father.  What's it take to immerse ourselves in the presence of Yahweh?  I wish I could give you a nice and easy checklist to follow.  But each one of us has to deal with different aspects of our own personalities and attitudes.  We're all different and we all need to approach this in the manner which will best deal with our specific problems.

    In spite of all the "how-to" books you can find about living a good Christian life, there are none that work for everybody.  Each of them offers help based on the author's experience or research.  My advice to you is to write your own book.  Seek godly counsel from your Christian friends, but most of all seek the presence of Yahweh for yourself.  Listen to the things your friends say, but don't try to copy their methods.  Make adjustments, fine tune their methods, make your own corrections, and most of all seek the ongoing advice and counsel of the indwelling Holy Spirit.  Your loving heavenly Father aches to spend intimate time with you.  Pour your heart into getting there.

 

    Blessings & Peace,    Mike