Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, June 11th. Have you ever felt tired and worn out from serving the Lord? If so, you'll be encouraged to learn about God's promise to energize us with His presence. When is the last time you felt the presence of God in a very special way that was unlike anything you'd felt before?
Or maybe I'd put it this way. When was the last time you felt His presence in your life in a way that you couldn't even describe? There are no real words to describe it. Was it when you were praying? Was it when you were in a worship service? Or maybe you felt it in a very special way when you were witnessing to someone else. Or maybe you were praying for someone else, you had a real burden for them. Or maybe it was the fact that you yourself was going through a very difficult situation you felt so totally, absolutely dependent upon God, He just made Himself known to you in a special way. Almost like He just showed up. Like it was, He interrupted what was going on in your life at that moment.
Well, what is all of that about? It's all about God manifesting Himself, revealing Himself, showing Himself forth in your life. And when you think about that, somebody says, well, I don't know whether God would ever do that for me or not. Maybe the question is, are you in a position spiritually? Have you allowed yourself to surrender to Him to such a degree that God would speak to you in a very unusual and a very powerful way to encourage you, to energize you?
In other words, something would go on in your life that you'd not experienced before. I think about, for example, when Jesus gave the Great Commission, which is to be found in the twenty-eighth chapter of Matthew. And listen to what He said. And I want you to notice, if He'd left out one phrase, I don't think they would have done it.
Listen. The eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some were doubtful. And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.
Now remember, we didn't have airplanes, we didn't have trains, we didn't have anything except horses and camels and so forth. Go into all the world and preach the gospel. Baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you.
Period. Now if He had stopped right there, I'm not sure what those disciples would have done. Because what He was saying is, in this handful of people, I want you to go all over the world and I want you to tell them about the crucifixion and about my resurrection and that the hope of mankind is to be found in a personal relationship with Me. Well, first of all, to go all over the world seemed impossible, number one.
Secondly, they could have come up with lots of arguments about telling them that you had been crucified and that you'd risen from the dead, so they'd had lots of questions. But then He finished that commission by saying, And I am with you always, even to the end of the age. It was the awareness and the promise of His presence that turned that handful of disciples into hundreds, thousands, millions upon millions over all these years. What is it about that phrase?
I'll be with you even to the end of this age. It is very important in the eyes of God that you and I recognize His presence. That we understand what He's about. And when we think about His presence, how would you define it? How would you describe His presence? You say, Well, I think He's everywhere. Well, now exactly what does that mean? Well, that means that He's over yonder and up here and over there.
Well, what about back yonder? There's no such thing as God not being everywhere. I want you to look at this Passion Scripture in the fifteenth chapter of Proverbs. And because while we say that God is everywhere, I want you to notice what the Scripture makes very, very clear about where He is. In this fifteenth chapter of the Proverbs and the twenty-ninth verse, listen to what He says. The Lord is far from the wicked, but He hears the prayer of the righteous. He's far from the wicked.
We say, Well, wait a minute. The Bible says that God is everywhere. He is everywhere, but He's not everywhere in the same way. In the life of one of His children who is a believer, He is present in a certain way. In the life of those who disobey Him, those who have no concept of God, those who are just living an evil, wicked life, He's not in their life the same way. And so He says He's far from them. So, when the Bible talks about the presence of God being with us, usually most of the time He's speaking about God being present to bless us.
That's most every time it's that way. So, He says He's far from the wicked. And the reason is, is because the wicked, that is the unbeliever, has shut Him out. And the unbeliever sees that if he even believes in God, he's out yonder somewhere. Whereas you and I have a whole different perspective on the presence of God. So, when we think about the presence of God, when we think about the presence of God, when we think about the presence of God, He intends for us to understand what it means to have His presence. Now, so let me explain something. It is difficult to explain the very presence of God when we take things out of it.
It's very difficult to explain for this reason. God, so to speak, sometimes just shows up. That is, all of a sudden you are aware of His presence. You are aware that He is doing something special in your life, something powerful. I would explain it this way. There are times in my life when I may be studying, and oftentimes it's that way. And all of a sudden, I am aware of the presence of God in a very special way and I break out crying.
In fact, that's the way that it affects me every time. So, when somebody says, well, now what does He say to me in those times? He doesn't say anything. That's not His purpose. It's not His purpose at that point to necessarily tell me something. His purpose is to make Himself known that I can understand that He loves me enough to manifest Himself to me in my life at that moment in order to express His love and how many times that has ever happened. In fact, while I was working on this message, I remember where I was in my house and I was walking through the house and I walked right inside my study door and all of a sudden I had that same awesome feeling of His presence. And I just broke out crying, weeping and weeping. Does that mean He never says anything?
No. But God delights to make Himself known. Think about this. He created us for Himself to bring Him glory and honor. He wants us to know Him personally, intimate, in a special way, in a powerful way, in a reassuring way. He wants us to know Him. He's willing to manifest Himself. He's willing to reveal Himself. If we believe Him, if we expect it, if we anticipate it, if we really truly believe that He cares enough about us to do it, is He willing?
Yes, He is. And it doesn't mean that I'm always in the process of just studying and has my mind on God. There have been some Sunday mornings I'd be shaving and all of a sudden, I'd be maybe thinking about the message, all of a sudden I break out crying. There's awesome sense of the awareness of the presence of God. And if you walked into my bathroom, here I would stand with soap on my face, razor here, weeping. And you'd want to know, what are you crying about?
And I'd have to answer, I don't know. Except that I know that God is present. He's present with me, in me, and around me at this moment in a very special way.
His awesome presence. How in the world would you define the presence of God? It's an awareness. Now, I'm going to tell you how it happens lately, but I want you to think about that. Because more than likely, some of you may have experienced the same thing, but you didn't know what it was.
You'd say, I just had a strange feeling, or I was praying and doesn't so happen. So, I want to give you a definition. Not that it's an adequate definition, because I don't think you can adequately define the presence of God. The presence of God is the revealing of God by His Spirit to our spirit for the purpose, for a specific purpose of what? Of rejoicing us, enabling us, or energizing us, informing us, or maybe even warning us. But what I want you to notice is this. There is a direct relationship between the Spirit of God and the way God manifests Himself.
So, how does He do that? So, think about it in this light. The place of the Holy Spirit in your life and my life is absolutely essential. And I think about growing up in those early years, and the church that I went to, they never mentioned the Holy Spirit.
They never said anything about Him. And when I began to preach, I noticed that people didn't say anything about the Holy Spirit. And what I want you to see is this. When you became a Christian, here's what happens. The Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God convicted you of your sin and showed you that you were wayward, that you were away from God, and if you died, you'd be lost and eternally separated from God. That was the work of the Holy Spirit, dealing with your conscience, with your mind. Then you received the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, confessing Him as your Lord Master. When you did that, the moment you said yes to Him as the crucified, resurrected Lord, the Holy Spirit, who is a person of eternity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit came into your life at that moment. And what did He do? He, the Bible says, regenerated you.
Now, watch this. That is, He gave you a new spirit at the same time giving you a new life. Because what happened is this, the Spirit of God came into your life, sealed you as a child of God, and began to indwell you from that moment on. He came to indwell you for some very specific reasons. He is our teacher, for example. He's the one who energizes us. He's the one who gives us understanding of the Word. In fact, if you go through the Scripture, here's what you'll find, that all the things that the Spirit of God does for us are things that you and I could not do for ourselves. God sent Him in order to do what? To live in us and through us the life of Christ. And until the Holy Spirit is within you, you cannot relate to God because God relates by His Spirit to our spirit and gives us direction, makes us aware of His presence. So that a person who says, well, I don't have any of that Holy Spirit in me, then you're not a Christian. Paul makes it very clear in Romans eight, if you do not have the Spirit of God within you, you are none of His. So that each one of us has the Holy Spirit living within us in order that you and I can communicate with God. So, this awesome presence of God is very, very important.
And He's willing to make His presence known. Remember we started out saying, when's the last time that you felt His presence in your life? Was it in a worship service? Was it somebody singing? Was it when you were praying or maybe in one of your private devotional times in your meditation? Is that the time that you felt Him the strongest the most, that you could not deny it? And you would say, God spoke to my heart. God was just, He was just all over.
I can't describe it. I just know He was there. Well, the truth is, that's what He wants to do. He desires to make Himself known. The problem is, we can't even begin to conceive of how much He loves us. How awesome His love is. We look at the cross and say, you know, He died on the cross for our sins. The greatest expression of His love.
That's true. But there is that awesome expression of His love that, listen, after we are saved daily in our life, He desires that you and I live aware of His presence. But there will be times when His presence is very, very significant, more significant than ever before.
It doesn't mean that He'll be there all the time. You can't create it. You can't manufacture it. You can't predetermine it. You can't say, well, God's going to, He's just going to visit me. No, it's when He chooses.
How often will it be? Nobody knows that. But He wants to make Himself known to the point that you and I can never deny the fact of who He is and what He's doing in our life. And so, when I think about that, I think about how did He work in the past? That is, what did God do in the past? He hasn't changed. And while our society and our cultures change, God hasn't changed. He knew all about changing cultures. He knew all about electronics when there wasn't any such thing as a wire. In other words, He knew everything about all things. And He is just as willing today to work in your life, speak to you, make Himself known and energize you by the awareness of His presence. It is awesome what happens when you are aware of the presence of God in your life. There is no limitation to what you can do that fits within the will of God for your life. So, how did He operate in the past?
Well, let's go back and look for just a moment because, and I want to say it again, He hasn't changed. And you and I could line folks up and we could say, well, these people are more important than these people. There's no such thing. Because remember this, the same Holy Spirit that abides within your heart abides in the heart of every single believer. And if you could take the heart of every single believer around the world so that there is no language, no color, no culture, but just God, we'd all look alike. That's the heart.
That's the soul of a person. That's how God operates. He operates with His Spirit within our spirit.
So, let's think about it for example. You remember when God wanted to speak to Moses. That Moses had been on the back side of the desert for forty years.
Ran away out of Egypt and because he killed an Egyptian soldier. As a result, he's out there as a shepherd. And one day he's walking along and he sees this burning bush. And he looks at it and he notices that it's not burning up.
It's just burning. And the Bible says, Moses turned aside to look. He didn't keep going.
He didn't say, well, that's my imagination. He turned aside to look and when he did, God said to him, Moses, Moses. And he stopped.
And you know the story. He told him to take off his sandals, take them off. He said, you're standing on holy ground. What did he do?
He made himself aware to Moses in a very special way. You say, well, will there be burning bushes in our life? Let me put it two ways. Like that one, no. But the kind that'll fit you, yes. The kind that'll fit you, yes. The kind that'll fit you, yes.
The kind that'll fit you, yes. Because he desires to do something in your life. Well, when Joshua took his place, and you remember that in the sixth chapter of Joshua. You remember that he had the responsibility of taking the children of Israel across the river and he's getting the children of Israel. And so, when he took the children of Israel, he said, well, who's giving the orders? And so, here's what happens in this fifth chapter and the thirteenth verse. Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho that he lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand and Joshua went to him and said to him, Now is the captain of the host of the Lord and Joshua fell on his face to the earth, bowed down and said to him, What has my Lord to say to his servant? The captain of the Lord's host said to Joshua, Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you're standing is holy. And Joshua did so. Well, you can imagine what Joshua must have felt because Moses had told him about his own experience.
What I want you to see is this. It's interesting here he doesn't tell us what God said to him. He just said, God showed up in the presence of this angel and said to him, Take off your shoes, you're on the holy ground. Now he had the responsibility of taking the children of Israel across the river into the Promised Land and to face Jericho. And God knew that that was going to be an awesome battle.
And so, what did He say to him? He revealed Himself. Now watch this because oftentimes in your life and my life, before you're facing something that's very difficult, God is willing to make Himself known in a very supernatural, spiritual, powerful, awesome, unforgettable way if you are aware of Him. Thank you for listening to Energized by His Presence. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
