Welcoming His Presence

Somehow, the message of the passion that He feels for us as His bride seems intense at times. Almost overwhelming. His unconditional, undying love is an incredible truth that He lived out for us of His own, free will. He chose to be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14), show us a perfect example of how to live (1Peter 2:22), die as payment for our sins and then rose from the dead (1Corinthians 15:3-8). A truth that allows us to experience the amnesty and tender kindness that He offers us today. Now. Always. Still, just like the Israelites when Moses came down from Mount Sinai, many of us are more at ease looking at the Lord through a veil rather than experiencing a relationship with Him behind the veil. We’re more at ease watching Sunday morning worship than actually worshiping. Tragically, we haven’t realized that the more depth our relationship with Him has, the more we will experience Him in our lives on a regular basis.

He Welcomes Our Presence

In His perfect love for us, Jesus desires to spend time with us. In fact, He desires to spend a lifetime with us and beyond. Presently, He not only intercedes for us daily, (Romans 8:34) but He is preparing a special place for each of us (John 14:2). And as we walk through each day, He desires to help us experience the presence of His perfect peace and joy. What Jesus offers us doesn’t fade at the first sign of trouble. It’s a far cry from what the world offers! It’s never out of stock and never needs to be upgraded, uploaded, or rebooted. And it’s free. It’s also rooted in a personal relationship with Him. While there may be occasions that we get out of focus and put more trust in our abilities than in Him, when we come to Him in prayer, He is always ready to forgive a repentant heart and meet our every need.

It’s easy to allow ourselves to be influenced by the "self-made" attitude of the world. However, God’s desire for us it that we would experience freedom from the burdens of what the world dictates we ought to have, see, hear or accomplish. The world teaches us to be corporate-minded. The Word teaches us to be Christ-minded. Being Christ-minded is the only thing that will ever bring true fulfillment and God’s deeper blessings. Asking the Lord to develop the fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives (Galatians 5:22-23) is the bottom line in being Christ-minded.

Personally, I think the Apostle John had the right idea when he laid his head on Jesus’ breast (John 13:23), What a privilege to be close enough to Jesus’ heart that you could hear it beating! Today, we can hear the heart of Jesus by spending time in His Word and by worshiping Him. When we focus on worshiping Him, of our own free will, it brings us to a deeper place of peace and joy that we wouldn’t otherwise experience. Persistent, focused worship, whether we sing it, speak it, or think it, will bring us to a place of being able to gain the victory over our struggles, and obtain God’s deepest blessings.

The Lord takes pleasure in blessing His people. We can know this because of the parable Jesus told us about the son who asks his father for bread in Luke 11:11-13. If the typical parent desires to give good gifts to their children (and they usually do), then how much more will our perfect heavenly Father desire to give us good gifts? Another way to look at it is this: friends, who are imperfect people, often desire to bless one another. So how much more would Jesus, the perfect friend, desire to bless us? It’s Jesus’ delight to bless us. Especially when He knows we will respond by sharing our blessings with others.

Drawing Near to Us

Jesus refers to us as His friends (John 15:15). He desires to draw near to us and He’s not bothered by our imperfections. In fact, He understands them because He has experienced life as a human and knows about limitations. Even before He first called the twelve to follow Him, He knew all of their flaws. He knew these, his closest friends, would abandon Him when He would have been most blessed by their support. He’s experienced what it’s like to be weary, hungry, tempted and misunderstood. He’s aware of each area in which we struggle and still chooses us as His beloved, desiring to help us achieve victory in every area of our lives.

As we invite Him into each area of our lives, He’ll be faithful to extend His guidance to us. Our challenge is to remember to slow down long enough and spend the necessary time in prayer – and then waiting on His reply. Time spent in prayer is never time squandered. In fact, I have heard many a minister say that more is accomplished when he or she takes the time to pray than when they just "jump into their day." Somehow, God always makes up the difference when we seek Him first.

Drawing Near to Him

It’s no secret that there are plenty of decisions in life that we must make. Everything from decisions concerning our career, to finances, to our choice of friends. And two of the most major decisions that we’ll ever make are who to marry and what house to buy. We can do what we think is best and then hope He’ll bless it, or we can ask Him what we should do and know He’ll bless it. When we make the decision to seek Him first, He’ll direct our path.

Two leaders from Israel’s history who can really bring us some insight about this are Johanan and Jezaniah (Jeremiah 42:1-22). They were in the middle of a rather ugly situation and asked Jeremiah to pray that God would show them where they should go and what they should do. However, they’d already decided where they’d go and what they’d do. They were trusting in their own ways. The only reason they wanted God involved was so that they’d have a guarantee concerning what they wanted. They didn’t really want what God wanted. That’s legalistic religion and God doesn’t respond favorably to those types of prayer requests. Even our Savior, while in the middle of a grueling struggle for our souls in the garden of Gethsemane, was willing to yield His will to the Father. This being the case, can we really consider doing anything less?

It’s sometimes difficult to let go of our own plans. Most of us don’t like being dependent on someone else concerning our futures or anything else that’s important to us. But yielding our plans to Him, in the long run, will bring the greatest blessing. In addition, our willingness to choose to ask Him to direct our plans is a type of life-style worship that will draw us into a deeper relationship with Him. It will cause us to draw near to Him, which in turn, will welcome Him to draw near to us.