Experiencing God

This was posted on my Tumblr in January:

D-group was really good today. We talked about a lot of great, deep things. But here is something that I am free and willing to share that I think is fully applicable to anyone at any point in their walk with the Lord:

You were designed to always be in God’s presence- to always be with Jesus. In Christ, we discover that Heaven is more than a place as we understand geographic places. Heaven is not just a spacial reality, it is a life; Heaven is the fact that Jesus dwells there. Heaven is being with Jesus. Wherever He is, there is Heaven.

You were created to always be in His presence in undisturbed communion. Jesus came to restore humanity to that level of communion and to show us that there is a place that exists in the spirit where we can live from Heaven before we die: a place set aside for lovers of God where the Christ-life exemplifies the bare minimum of what our experience can and should be as humans fully redeemed by Jesus’ sacrifice- an experience based on His performance, not ours.

John 14 and 15 paint a vivid picture of how our lives as Christ followers are prioritized. He loves us, and we love Him back with the love He has poured out on us. John grasped something about the nature and character of God that few other new testament writers got a hold of: our preciousness in the sight of God- perhaps this is what gave him the boldness to call himself “the disciple Jesus loved”. He understood the bigness of God’s heart and His ability to deluge a favor that allows us to live as if we were His favorite.

In any event, the purpose of this favor is to draw us up into a place of abiding. Abiding is our permission, our challenge, our battle, and our inheritance. Most people’s spiritual life is riddled with a tug-of-war between what the grace of God might mean for us and the overwhelming weight of inadequacy, failed performance, guilt, shame and insecurity that the enemy tries to keep in front of our vision. We know that Christ’s work on the cross was sufficient to get us out of hell, but most of us fail to take full advantage of the privileges of “Sonship” or “Daughtership”. Ephesians 1 tells us that the unbelievable power of the Spirit not only raised Jesus from the dead, but also lifted Him up to the highest place of power, authority, and glory. Most of us get on the bus of “salvation” but hop off at the first stop in the village of “redeemed”. The lies of the enemy and our unwillingness to succumb to the Love of God keep us from staying on the journey into the town of “deliverance”, the city of “freedom”, the downtown of “authority”, and the metropolis of “more than overwhelmingly victorious by His love and seated with Him in heavenly places”. We have access to not only visit this place, we have permission to abide in this place where we already have every spiritual blessing and everything we need for life and Godliness. What might your life look like if you chose to live in and from this place, instead. What if you actually grasped that you do not live in your circumstances, but rather, you live in Christ?

Our entrance and access to these places are not affected at all be our performance; our performance influences our abiding, not our access at any given moment. In Jesus, the door is never shut, and an moment you can run to this place. You can get into this place in any circumstance through the gates of thanksgiving of through the courts with praise. You abide there because of intimacy. Praying without ceasing is how we abide there; but praying without ceasing is not a religious discipline- it is being passionately caught up in a never-ending conversation throughout the whole day with our lover. Abiding with the Father is about learning relational Joy.

The focus of prayer life that is rightly lived is about crying out for His presence, to literally see His face, to behold His glory in tangible ways. It is the cry for more of Him! This life is about waiting in stillness for Him; it’s about listening. It is about hearing a certain sound and tuning out the other ones. There are many voices that are misleading in our transformation into the image of Christ.

The cry of intimacy is, “Jesus, I want to be with You. Holy Spirit, make me more like Jesus. Papa, deluge me in Your delight, in Your joy, in Your peace, in Your righteousness and in Your love.”

If you want to discover the limitless possibilities of who God is for you, then you need to choose to make fostering intimacy with Him the number one priority in your life.

Through scripture, permission has been granted for us to experience ALL of who He is. The key is to let the truth soak into your spirit, not your mind. Find ways to apply the truths to your circumstances. Let the revelation that is coming to you through the passage impact the way you choose to live, think and interact with others; let it SHAPE the way you live and experience life. Reading the Bible will do you very little. Reading large quantities is even more unhelpful. The only way it becomes meaningful is when we allow a truth to soak in and change us over time.

The whole Bible is a set of invitations into an experience that God wants you to have with Him!- An experience of intimacy with an Almighty and Loving God, filled with overwhelming joy, peace, truth and hope that leads us to rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in everything!