Have a little talk

I wasn’t sure if I would write about this but I can’t let it go.  More precisely, God won’t let me drop it.  As a matter of fact I believe this may be one of the most important revelations for me so far.  So here we go.

Let me ask you a question: “Can someone worship ‘the presence’ over the person?”

I know that may seem like a strange question so let me amplify.  When you are in worship, in a corporate setting, are you looking for an encounter or are you looking for Abba?  Are you enjoying the music or the Creator?  Are you listening to the message or listening for the Messenger?  How about at home when you are alone or with your family?  Do you seek Him in your quiet time or do you seek the knowledge of Him?  Do you make a list of requests and present them to God or do you seek His input for your list?  When you read your Bible are you learning what it says or learning about who wrote it?  Do you seek to know God’s nature or His rules?  Do you stay at a distance and bow to the throne or get into His lap?  In the secret place are you seeking His presence or His person?

Listen I understand that the answer sometimes can be both or maybe one leads to the other but in the end the most important thing to God is YOU.  Yourself is your worship.  He gave it all, the most important, the most cherished, His only Son, His very life for YOU.  Not only that, as if it wasn’t enough, He rose again on the third day so you would know absolutely that your sin was gone.  He paved the way to move into His new temple, YOU.  Guess what?  You didn’t deserve any of it, not even a little.  Even while you were “living it up in your old sin nature,” Jesus died for YOU.  Can you see it?  Can you see how this demonstrates that God is love?  Can you see that God absolutely, unequivocally and desperately loves you?  Hopefully you do.

So with that understanding do you know that God wants more than anything else to have a conversation with you?  Yep, that’s right.  He desperately wants to talk to you.  The enemy really doesn’t want you to know that.  Tell your very best friend, maybe even your believing friend and say “God told me this…”  Watch and see what happens.  We can say we have seen people healed when we pray, people have been delivered in supernatural ways, people have encountered God in heavenly settings, but you say you talk to God and…  It probably depends on the circles you walk in but I have seen more resistance to this thought than most anything else.  People will agree that God tells us stuff through our reading of the Bible or some conversation with a godly friend or some chance encounter with a billboard or song or scene or word or a butterfly… but to say God talks to you, actually has a conversation, is a little too much.  If you mention it in the secular arena they might even try to put you in the mental ward.

Think of it this way.  If you went to visit your favorite relative that you haven’t seen for some time wouldn’t it be really strange if you just sat down and watched TV on separate chairs and never had a conversation.  You stay with them for a week and occasionally you make a request for a certain kind of food or a special pillow or tissues for the bathroom or whatever else and they say nothing.  Wouldn’t that be odd?

Now think of your Father in Heaven.  He loves you more than life itself.  His own Son’s life was given for you.  There is nothing you can give Him that He doesn’t already have or can’t just speak into existence.  He doesn’t desire your stuff.  His desire is not for what you can do for Him it is for YOU.  So now how can He not want to talk to you?  How can He not want to have a conversation with His most favorite relative (child)?  He can’t wait for you to believe and start a conversation.

There are so many scriptures about God speaking to us, giving us wisdom, giving us knowledge, revealing hidden things to us, and more.  Here are a few examples:

John 10:27  My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. ⁶ But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. ⁷ For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; ⁸ he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Proverbs 2:6 For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;

The transference of information, wisdom, knowledge, prophesy, etc. is important but even more than that is the interaction, the relationship, the intimacy.  How about this verse:

Proverbs 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out

God loves to hide things not from us but for us.  He loves to reveal those things when we draw near.  It is the ultimate intimacy we can have with Him, totally surrendered, in conversation with our loving Father.   For me the first step was to believe that God loves me so much He wants to have a conversation.  The second step is to trust that He won’t let me be mislead by some enemy intrusion (God is way bigger than any of that).  Then I simply began to ask questions and write down the answers.  Here are a few journal entries where I was “testing this out.”

Why is it so hard to hear Your voice?

“It is not hard, it is different.  I am not limited by words.  I desire closeness and intimacy.  I want to breathe into your ear.  I could have given you life just by saying it but instead I breathed life into you.  I want you to feel my closeness.  I made you to be close to me.  I died to remove any excuses to remain at a distance.”

How can I learn more rapidly, grow very fast, to hear You so distinctly?

“Listen all the time.  Draw near like a kiss.  Wait for my breath.  Feel my touch.  Prepare yourself for revelation.  There are things I need to do with you before I send you out.  I need to love you first.  You are so important to me that I must breath my love into you.  That is more important to me then anything else.  I would die for you and you only.  Your worth is not your service to me.  Your worth is what I have done.  Your worth is my desire for you.  I will show you what I mean.  I will show you my heart.  Drew near to me and listen.  Power will come.  Power is here.  Your acceptance is not found in how I use you but how I love you.  Rest there and not elsewhere.”

Holy Spirit show me something this morning, please.

“When I speak it lingers.  It is like giving you a gift.  It is something you can hold on to.  Words will come and go.  Words are like memories and will fade.  That is why I gave you the Bible.  You can come back again and again.  I put it in your spirit.  I put it in your soul.  I put it in your heart.  My words have dimensions upon dimensions.  I speak in depth and breath.  I have flavor and smell.  When I speak you will know me first and then it bubbles up to your senses.”

Holy Spirit what else do you want to show me? (reference is “rivers of living water”)

“The easy way into the river is to ask me a question and know there is an answer. Ask me simple questions at first, the ones you have faith for. I will grow your faith. Soon our conversation will be continuous but not distracting.”

We sing that song “Just Have a Little Talk with Jesus.”  Or at least most of us have heard it.  I believe it is time to do just that thing.  It isn’t a puzzle to figure out.  It isn’t connecting a bunch of dots that couldn’t be by chance.  That is God communicating but He has a very intentional plan to talk to you.  The first step is to believe.  The next is to trust.  Then just ask a question.  Go ahead and have a little talk.

Yay God!

Lance