Tag Archives: God’s presence

Max Lucado

Max Lucado – More Sponge, Less Rock

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Make God’s presence your passion. How? Be more sponge and less rock. Put a rock in the ocean, and what happens? Its surface gets wet. The exterior may change color, but the interior remains untouched. Yet place a sponge in the ocean, and notice the change. It absorbs the water. The ocean penetrates every pore and alters the essence of the sponge. God surrounds us in the same way the Pacific surrounds an ocean floor pebble. He is everywhere—above, below, on all sides.

We choose our response—rock or sponge? Resist or receive? Hard hearts never heal. Spongy ones do. The Psalmist determined, “When I am afraid, I will trust in You.” Open every pore of your soul to God’s presence!

From You’ll Get Through This

Max Lucado

Max Lucado – Enjoy God’s Presence

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You will never go where God is not. Envision the next few hours of your life. Where will you find yourself? In a school? God indwells the classroom. On the highways? His presence lingers among the traffic. In the hospital, the boardroom, the living room, the funeral home? God will be there.

Acts 17:27 says, “He is not far from each one of us.” Each of us. God doesn’t play favorites. All people can enjoy God’s presence. But many don’t. They plod through life as if their only strength was their own. As if their only solution comes from within, not from above. They live God-less lives. Lay claim to the nearness of God. Grip God’s promise like the parachute it is. Repeat it to yourself over and over. “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).

From You’ll Get Through This

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley – God’s Empowering Presence

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Charles Stanley

Jeremiah 1:6-10  

When did you last feel the presence of God in your life? I don’t mean a merely intellectual recognition that He is with you, for He is everywhere. Rather, when did you last recognize in your heart that the Lord is personally, intimately abiding in you?

If you are like many believers, it may have been a while since you really felt His presence. Too many people go about their lives without a genuine sense of God’s closeness. What a tragedy!

Repeatedly in Scripture, we see that whenever God calls someone into His service, He first reminds the person of His enduring presence. We see this in the stories of Moses (Ex. 3:11-12), Joshua (Josh. 1:1-9), Gideon (Judg. 6:12), and Jeremiah (Jer. 1:6-8), to name just a few. These men discovered, as we can, that the awareness of God’s presence energizes us for our work.

Why does God repeatedly assure His followers of His presence? He does so because we need to be reminded of the reason for our confidence. Each time God calls a servant into action, He essentially says, “You can be strong and courageous because I am with you. Victory isn’t about your abilities, your strength, your skill, your armor, your gifts, or your dedication; it has to do with My presence. You can be strong because I will be strong in you.”

When Jeremiah trembled at the thought of the difficult ministry ahead of him, the Lord strengthened him with these words: “They will fight against you, but they will not overcome you, for I am with you to deliver you” (Jer. 1:19).

God knows how difficult life can be, and He knows every detail of each struggle you will ever face. As a believer in Christ Jesus, you can trust that your heavenly Father will keep His Word. He is with you right now, and He always will be, as He promises in His Word: “‘I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you,’ so that we confidently say, ‘The LORD is my helper, I will not be afraid. What will man do to me?”’ (Heb. 13:5-6).

Adapted from “The Charles F. Stanley’s Life Principles Bible,” 2008.

John MacArthur

John MacArthur – Denying Yourself

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John MacArthur

“I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed” (Dan. 9:4).

In Luke 18 Jesus told a parable to people who were trusting in their own self-righteousness. He said, “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, and the other a tax-gatherer. The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself, ‘God, I thank Thee that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-gatherer. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’

“But the tax-gatherer, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’

“I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted” (vv. 10-14).

Apart from God’s mercy we cannot enter into God’s presence. The tax-gatherer knew that and pled for forgiveness. The Pharisee missed the point and went away without forgiveness.

Like the tax-gatherer, Daniel approached God with an attitude of confession and self-denial. He could have reminded God of his years of faithful service while in Babylon, but that didn’t enter his mind. He knew that in himself there was nothing to commend him to God. His only thought was for mercy for himself and his people, that God’s purposes could be realized through them.

As a Christian, you have the wonderful privilege of boldly entering into God’s presence “with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith” (Heb. 10:22). That privilege is rooted in God’s grace through Christ’s sacrifice and leaves no room for presumption or self-righteousness. Always guard your attitude in prayer so that you don’t unwittingly slip into a Pharisaic mentality.

Suggestions for Prayer:

Memorize Psalm 117:1þ118:1 and recite it often as a hymn of praise to the Lord.

For Further Study:

Jesus had much to say about the self-righteous scribes and Pharisees of His day. Read Matthew 23, noting His scathing denunciations of their hypocritical attitudes and practices.