We are born with the capacity to walk, but we have to develop the ability to do so. When we are born again, we have the capacity to be spiritually discerning, but we must cultivate the ability to do so.
Recently our daughter, Lexi, was getting ready for her day which involved working with a client for speech pathology. As she was getting ready that morning, she kept having a very specific time, to the minute, pop into her thoughts. She would later learn that it was the Holy Spirit prompted her that her client was going to be late and this was the exact moment the client would arrive. God is speaking! Are we listening?
We can’t give what we don’t have. God wants us to raise up our children to know God intimately. As our daughters were growing up we worked to train them in an awareness of the nearness of God and His desire to speak to us. Over meals we would talk about where we were in reading our Bibles with the turn the page challenge. Any time we noticed the girls asking about something that might be the Lord prompting them we paid attention.
Once Faith asked Tracy about someone’s child who had been ill. Tracy pursued this to find out what the status was with that child at the moment in the day when Faith was asking. Tracy found out that the child was really struggling with fever at that time of day. We all circled back explaining how God was obviously prompting Faith to think about this little girl when she was struggling. This was such a great teaching moment for all of us to learn to pay attention to the promptings of the Holy Spirit! This is God’s plan for us as well as His expectation of us.
Matthew 16:2-3 But He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘The weather will be fair, for the sky is red,’ 3 and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but not the signs of the times. NIV
Jesus expected these people to know what spiritual time it was in their day and He expects this from us as well when we are commissioned to be led by the spirit. This speaks of discerning the time spiritually and not missing what God is doing.
If you’ve ever been distracted and lost track of time you may have been late for an appointment or missed something altogether. Living distracted lives will cause us to miss moments God has ordained to awaken this prophetic awareness in our hearts and to release His Kingdom in the earth.
Sixteen times in scripture Jesus says, he who has ears let him hear what the Spirit says to the church. We need to understand hearing God in community is God’s design for us to here with clarity. If you don’t discuss things God is revealing then you will live your life only knowing part of what God is desiring to say.
As we enter into 2023, we will focus on consecrating and devoting ourselves to the Lord very intentionally in the first 10% of the year. Basically this is the first 40 days. Jesus was transformed by 40 days in the wilderness. Noah's life was transformed by 40 days of rain. Moses was transformed after 40 days on the mountain. The disciples were transformed by 40 days with Jesus after His resurrection.
Begin planning now to find a quiet place, very intentionally, for these first 40 days of 2023 on a daily basis. Spend some quality time in your morning reading portions of Scripture, journaling about what you've read, and meditating in prayer about the ideas. This gives God room to work with the deposits that come as a result of our being in God's Word. Take the TURN THE PAGE CHALLENGE if you've not already done so! Be sacrificial in the way you pray, give, connect, declare, and invite others into this journey of knowing Jesus.
1 John 3:24 As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in Him, and He lives in us. And this is how we experience His deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit He gave us. MSG
Something happens in the human heart when we experience an awareness of authority. Noticing any police officer on the highway will automatically change the way you drive. The awareness of the awe filled awakening of God’s presence.
God is exposing us to mere glimpses of His overwhelming majesty which awakens capacity that exists within us. Being in God’s presence shapes us in a variety of ways as we learn to be responsive to Him. Within you right now is the power to do things you never dreamed possible. Conversations with God awaken our destiny and activate our supernatural potential.
It is daily conversational relationship through prayer, God’s Word and gathering as God’s family that awakens new levels of conversation for new levels of life! So how do we develop this? Practicing His presence! Developing a deep awareness of the nearness of God!
On a trip recently, I noticed a field of windmills beside the road. Some of them were turning in response to the wind, while others gave no response at all. I felt the Holy Spirit was prompting me to think about how easy it is for some believers to simply not purpose to face the wind, and have no response to the Holy Spirit while others, right beside them seem to be having an encounter with God.
Purpose to lift up your countenance and face the wind as heaven begins to blow.
Pastor A.T. was recently invited to a business meeting. He really wasn’t looking forward to it so he asked the Lord to help him see God in the day. Praying and listening the Lord spoke two names of men he would meet and connect with more personally. He met one but didn’t discover the other until later when one of the guys he had made a deep connection with at the meeting disclosed he went by his middle name. His first name was the 2nd name God spoke to him in prayer. He was integrating relationally conversational ideas we explore in the Destiny Table training and it was incredibly fruitful. The revelation of the Table is truly shaping our lives.
We Bring GP2RL Action Point:
Make time to practice the promptings of the Holy Spirit in prayer this week.
Dallas Willard, “The most basic thing we can and must do is to keep God before our minds. This is the fundamental secret of caring for our soul. Our part in practicing the presence of God is to direct and redirect our minds constantly to him. In the early time of our practicing, we may well be challenged by our burdensome habit of dwelling on things much less than God. These are habits that can be broken. New grace filled habits will replace former habits as we take intentional steps to keep God before us. Soon our minds constantly turn to God as the needle of a compass constantly returns to the North. If God is the great longing of our souls, he will become the pulsar of our inner being.”
Awareness of the Nearness of God: Capacity and Ability
DISCUSSION GUIDE
Click here for a downloadable pdf file of this guide.
“Unto us a child is born” and He will be called Immanuel” which means “God with us”. The nearness of God is always there. We must work on our awareness of the nearness of God. This is all about practicing the presence of God as our way of life. Sometimes we need to look up to be reminded of his presence within us.
Don’t mistake God’s silence for his absence. Sometimes God uses his presence to bring guidance. Pay attention to the presence of grace. Pay attention to the absence of grace! God gives direction by what he graces with His presence. This is a sense of Kingdom awareness. We are learning to watch for grace and follow favor as our way of life.
Psalm 16:8 I am always aware of the Lord’s presence; he is near, and nothing can shake me. (GNT)
Great encouragement comes from rehearsing God’s Word. It is God’s plan is for us to spend time drawing close to his heart and hearing his voice together as a family. This is why we start each meeting with this question first:
DISCUSSION QUESTION:
1. Where are you reading in your Bible and what are you sensing from God?
Ask each person in your group to answer the discussion questions below after reading the verses. Realize there is great power in just reading the Bible together and allowing the Holy Spirit to awaken his conversational nature in the group.
Matthew 16:2-3 But He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘The weather will be fair, for the sky is red,’ 3 and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but not the signs of the times. NIV
1 John 3:24 As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience His deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit He gave us. MSG
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
2. Have each person give a 60 second summary of what these verses are saying, in their own words.
3. What do these verses teach us about God?
4. What do these verses teach us about people?
5. What should you do this week in response to what we are reading and what God is revealing?
6. Who comes to mind when considering a person you might share this with this week?
We Bring GP2RL Action Point:
Make time to practice the promptings of the Holy Spirit in prayer this week.