THE ABIDING PRESENCE OF GOD

Saint’s, we are a habitation of God, a walking... talking... breathing temple of the God who chooses to indwell the hearts of His children. The Holy Spirit of God Himself, a comforter identical to Jesus, lives within our bodies of flesh, manifesting the Christ-Life within. Christ is within us and we are within Him, baptized into His body, and Christ is in the Father and the Father is in Him... He and God are one, so... we are in God. Picture a glass filled with water then submerged into the ocean. We are the glass... God is the ocean... we are filled and surrounded by God. We don’t need a visitation from God... He is here. We don’t need the Holy Spirit to come... He is here. We don’t need to seek God’s presence... He is ever present. “For in Him we live and move and have our being.” We exist saturated by and surrounded with the presence of God.

In Psalm 139 David ponders the impossibility of separation from God’s omnipresence... wonders at His omniscience... marvels at His omnipotence. Our God is everywhere, knows everything, and has infinite power. Remember the old Invisible Man movies, where the Invisible Man puts clothes on to be seen. It’s just that way with God. He is always present with us and sometimes clothes Himself with our feelings so we can “see” Him. Feelings are a product of our emotions... but God’s abiding presence is an indisputable fact for the born-again, Spirit-filled saint of God. Seeking God’s presence is Old Covenant, but in the New and Better Covenant we acknowledge God’s abiding presence: Whether we feel anything or not... He is with and in us! We should be comforted we are filled and surrounded by such a God. We should be star-struck with awe and wonder that our God chooses to dwell in us. We should rejoice that we are never ever alone... never ever forsaken. The enemy wants to rob us of the peace and joy of dwelling in the presence of God, But God’s presence is our inheritance... our birthright, and we must claim it to walk in it. We should proclaim... by faith, we walk in the abiding presence of God... for we do. God is with us... always with us!

GOD’S PRESENCE IS OUR INHERITANCE...

OUR BIRTHRIGHT...

(1 Cor. 7:19-20; 2 Cor. 6:16; Acts 17:28; Jn. 14:10-11, 20, 23; Jn. 15:4-5; Jn. 17:21, 23; 1 Jn. 4:13, 15; Ps. 139; Eph. 1:13; 4:6; Gal. 2:20; Col. 3:3-4)
                                                   

OVERCOMING LIFE

Blood-bought saint’s overcome adversity “by the word of their testimony.” Our testimony is produced by our experiences, growing with each new experience, so we must have experiences… even unto death experiences, to have a powerful testimony. Overcoming Life is the metaphorical four-legged stool. The seat is our shared testimony, and the legs supporting our testimony are the commandments of the Overcoming Life: “Trust In The Lord With All Your Heart”, “Rejoice Always”, “In Everything Give Thanks”, and “Pray Without Ceasing.” And the thing about a four-legged stool... it can only function as its designer intended with all four legs in place. Ditto God’s saints: The Great Architect of the universe designed us to overcome through obedience to these commandments, all of them. We conquer, subdue, prevail… are victorious, when we overcome the intended consequences of adversity through our growing testimony of Good arising out of the ashes of Bad. For it is God who wills and does in us of His good pleasure, masterfully turning life’s interruptions into good in accordance with His purposes, and transforming us in the process.

 To trust in God with all of our heart... soul... mind... strength, is to submit to His Lordship and recognize our total dependence on Him. God’s ways are infinitely beyond our comprehension so we must “lean not on our own understanding.” Rejoicing demonstrates the joy of the Lord, producing strength. Giving thanks in every “thing”, every circumstance of life, enthrones God in our heart adding worth to His name. Ceaseless prayer, the abiding life of John fifteen, engages God to release His Kingdom rule into our circumstances, in accordance with His will, aligning us with His heart and purposes, and bringing the comfort of the Holy Spirit. The word of our testimony declares our heart to God, to all those about us, and to the powers of darkness: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” We need trust that faces death and does not flinch! The enemy is defeated not because our circumstances improve, but in spite of our circumstances -- no matter what they do. He is defeated when we refuse to allow our circumstances to degrade our Faith, Trust and Hope in our Daddy. He is defeated when we trust, rejoice, give thanks, and pray even during the worse storms of life. This is how we overcome... this is the “words” of our testimony...

Overcomers reflect our Lord’s nature so others can understand what He is like. The Apostle Paul understood the Overcoming Life, for he penned its commands out of his own personal experiences, out of the blood and flesh from his whip scared back.  Paul understood to the point of literally rejoicing in infirmities, troubles, suffering, hardships, afflictions, persecutions, in a nutshell adversity, referring to them as momentary “light afflictions” common to all saints. And hence the need for the four-legged stool!  John the Revelator spoke of the eternal rewards of overcomers in his letters to the seven churches, utilizing the Greek present participle to denote continuous action – overcoming requires patience endurance, for it is a lifestyle. Overcomers will eat from the Tree of Life, be unhurt by the second death, be fed hidden manna, be given power over the nations, be acknowledged by Christ before God as His own possessions, be pillars in the temple of God, be called by the Lord’s new name, and will sit with Christ on His throne. WOW!

Overcoming is a spiritual discipline... a habit of choice, and like all disciplines must first be understood, then practiced, to become a discipline. Trust, rejoice, give thanks, pray, and share your testimony of God’s goodness, even when bad things happen, because Daddy is sovereign in His allowings, and purposeful in His working out of our “things.” He does not give us overcoming life; He gives us Life... His Divine Life, as we overcome. And He wants us to have a testimony... He wants us to overcome!                                                                                                          

“FOR THIS IS THE WILL OF GOD… "

(Rev. 12:11; 1 Thess. 5:16-18; Phil. 2:13; Rom.8:28; Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21; Job 13:15; 2 Cor. 4:16-18, 11:23-27, 12:10)

COLORING “TRUTH” WITH OUR MISCONCEPTIONS

We must approach God’s word tabula rasa style, with no preconceived notions about God. We are an opinionated people, and it is all too easy to superimpose our opinions and desires about the nature of God on our interpretation of His word, coloring “truth” with our misconceptions. By “nature” I mean the fundamental qualities of God, His essential character, His relational identity, what is knowable about God by man. This is why we miss God’s will so much and get our life into a mess.

It is essential to lay aside our opinions about the nature of God when we approach His word, letting the word interpret itself through the Holy Spirit. For Example: The Bible speaks in many places about the “goodness” of God. When we approach these passages with the world’s mindset as to what is “good”, we create a mental filter through which we interpret these passages, and, most importantly, all other passages – compounding the error. The current popularity of the Health and Wealth message is a prime example of superposing our desires on God’s word and skewing its meaning, equating the goodness of God with our physical and material well-being. God’s goodness was forever demonstrated at Calvary, and is defined by His will -- His purposefulness in redeeming and transforming a people to inhabit His Kingdom.  Jesus didn’t die just to save us from hell, and He certainly didn’t die so we could have a life full of physical and material blessings – our “best life” can never be now. He died to transform us for Kingdom life, to change us into vessels of honor fit to inhibit His Kingdom. The Apostle Paul called this being “conformed to the image of His (God’s) Son”, to be molded and shaped into the image of Jesus sharing inwardly His likeness... His nature.  To do the works Jesus did, we must become like Him. Make no mistake; this is the number one passion of God’s heart, the number one “good” He has graced us with. In redemption we say yes to the call of the Father. In transformation God puts us on His potting wheel and begins to mold and shape us, using the pressures of life applied at just the right time and just the right place to orchestrate our metamorphosis. These “pressures” are the adverse circumstances of our life, the things we normally call bad, the things God allowed that He might take the enemy’s bad and turn it into good according to His purpose... our transformation. Everything that moves us closer to God -- makes us more Christlike -- is God’s goodness in action. God is too good to leave us the way we are. We should expect The Way into the Kingdom to be difficult, for Jesus said it would be. We must learn to rejoice and give thanks in adversity, knowing God is at work on our behalf, transforming our nature while purifying our faith. And we desperately need transformation for we are sin stained spiritual cripples who need to  become beacons of radiant light reflecting the holy nature of Christ to a world drowning in sin’s darkness.

Coloring truth has led to thousands of denominational flavors, and the spiritual deception of many into fringe factions. The natural mind, unaided by the Spirit of God, cannot know... comprehend, the things of God, “for they are spiritually discerned.” The job description of the Holy Spirit... “The Spirit of truth”, has two entries: 1) Manifest the life and nature of Christ in willing submitted saints. 2) Lead, guide, direct, comfort, and teach willing saints about God through the revelation of His word. We must allow the Holy Spirit to be the mental filter through which we interpret God’s word, for the Holy Spirit is, operationally, the mind of Christ in us: We must allow the Holy Spirit to do His job in us. We must learn to color truth by the Spirit of Truth.

COLORING TRUTH 
BY THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH