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#159 The Presence Centered Life (11 - Being Continually Filled) · The OneCry Podcast

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You know, I think one of the greatest affronts to the work of God in our life
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personally and in our church is our lack of dependence on the Spirit's power.
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You know, I think that we have for so long got the best we can possibly do, and it's not working.
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Music.
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And when God never intended for us not to be tethered to His power.
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Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
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The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.
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Hey, well, welcome to the One Cry Podcast. I'm Kyle Reno with my partner in
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crime, Bill Eliff, on the other side. How you doing, buddy?
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Hey, man. Hey, man. Good to see you. Yeah.
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Well, listen, we are honored that you'd give us some moments to really share
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with you what we believe in God's heart for personal revival,
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believing for revival and awakening in our nation and our gods at work in powerful ways.
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But we believe there's so much more in store. And so just to catch you up,
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one, I would encourage you, please go the whole journey with us in the podcast.
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Like there's things that are coming toward the end that you'll need to hear
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the connect the dots and a lot of things that you're about to hear at the beginning.
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And as always, there's more resources for you at OneCry.com.
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And even in the show notes, there's more things based off of each episode that
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you can continue to learn from even beyond these episodes.
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But today, Bill, today, you're going to keep walking us into these truths that
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God's really birthed in your heart around the presence-centered life.
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And you've, man, God's used you, bro, to really help us see,
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even in the last couple episodes, from drawing near, I mean,
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to cleansing moments, like non-negotiables, to be people that are positioned for His presence.
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And today, you're going to talk about what it means to be filled,
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right? And listen, we've got some Baptist background here, me and you.
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We know what it's like to be full, right?
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We know what it's like to pull up at the banquet table and eat too much and indulge too much.
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But there's more that God wants for each one of us as personally and as a people.
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So walk us into it. Absolutely. So we're going to look at this issue of filling.
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As we, just to remind us of where we are,
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I want to mention this primary statement, and if you're watching by video,
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you can see this on the screen here behind me.
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But we made this foundational statement, and that is that God desires an unbroken
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daily personal relationship with us, but we've got to cooperate.
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And in this statement, His presence is what we most need, and our presence is what He most desires.
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Now, we saw earlier in the previous broadcast, God has His ways and His ways
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to invite us into His presence.
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I just want to just look at this chart is that, first of all,
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God, part of his way of inviting us into his presence is how he created us.
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So he's he's creating us in his image so we could talk to him and walk with
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him. He made us with eyes and ears.
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He created this incredible place in the garden.
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We rebelled against that and and and walked away, which we have been doing ever
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since. sense, but his creating indicates his desire for us to be in his presence.
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And then beyond that, look at this next little truth. And that is he constantly
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in the Old Testament and beyond is calling us.
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I mean, God is a speaking God.
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And so he came, even though we rebelled against him, you look at the Israelites,
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I mean, over and over again, they were doing the most horrific things in light of the mercy of God,
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but he kept calling and he kept sending prophets and voices and men and women
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to communicate and say, come back to me, return to me. And here's how to do that.
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Not only was he calling, but he was what I would call discipling.
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In other words, he walked with men like Noah and Abraham and Moses and Elijah and Elisha.
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And he helped these men be men who lived in the presence of God.
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And then when we looked at them, we saw what that was like.
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I mean, we all need that discipleship. That's how the kingdom is multiplied.
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And it's fascinating to me that right in the middle of the Bible, he took one of the most.
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Perfect examples of this, a man named David, a man after his own heart.
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And David gave us the Psalms. Well, God gave us the Psalms. But the Psalms are
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the expressions of a presence-centered man.
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And Jerusalem was a picture of a presence-centered city.
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I believe it's Psalm 48 that says God has made himself known in Jerusalem.
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Jerusalem and she's lifted up and she's become the joy of the whole earth.
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Why is that? Because the presence of God was there.
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And God was trying to say to us, look, if you would just walk with me,
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if you would just stay in my presence, this is what the presence of God brings.
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And his presence his fullness of joy.
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If that were not enough, we see this next movement of God bringing us into his presence,
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and that is that he dwelt with us.
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He came and dwelt with us. The word of God became flesh and dwelt with us, and we beheld his glory.
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We could touch, we could see, we could hear God and his presence.
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I mean, there's a greatest manifestation we've ever seen of the presence of
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God was in the person of Jesus Christ.
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And so we just saw it. Nobody can say, well, I don't know what God and his presence
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are like, like because we see what it was like to be in the presence of God
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in the person of Jesus Christ.
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And then when Jesus had finished his work, providing a way through the cross
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and the resurrection for us to come into his presence by taking care of our
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sin problem, he said, now I'm going away.
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And the disciples just, well, they were really afraid. And he said,
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don't be afraid. I'm not going to leave you like an orphan.
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I'm going to send the Holy Spirit. And here's the next level of the presence
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of God who will indwell you.
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He will be with you and he will be in you.
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So you can experience the presence of God 24-7 all the time.
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I mean, this is absolutely incredible.
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And if that were not enough, he said to his disciples that day in John 14,
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he said, and listen, don't be afraid.
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Afraid, I'm going to prepare a place for you that where I am, there you may be also.
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And I'll come again and receive you to myself. So he's coming. Amen.
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I mean, he's just coming back to take us to a place where there'll be absolutely no interruption.
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I mean, when we see the activity of God, the ways of God in drawing us in and
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pursuing us into his presence.
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It just overwhelms us. It just makes us understand how much he loves us.
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But here's the question. We said in the beginning, God desires this unbroken
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relationship with us for us to be in his presence, but we must us cooperate.
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How do we cooperate?
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And just like God has his ways, men have their ways, right?
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And we've been seeing the last few weeks, the ways of a presence-centered man or woman.
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If you say, I want to be a person, is it possible to live in the presence of God all the time?
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Well, apparently God says, pray without ceasing, right?
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Pray with no interruption. Talk to me constantly.
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Be in my presence. He invites us there. We can live in his presence.
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He says in Colossians 3, set your mind on the things above where Christ is seated
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at the right hand of God. God, fix your minds there because you've died to a life that can't do that.
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And your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
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So we can experience this all the time, but we've got to cooperate.
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So what has to happen is we need to develop those ways of experiencing the presence of God.
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Now, we fumble and mumble at this. At first, we feel like the world is attractive,
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and so we wander away from His presence and chase the world and look at other gods.
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We talked about that, and it's always just a disaster when we do that.
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But as we grow and mature and get more and more hungry for Him,
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ways begin to develop in us. And we saw three of those the last three weeks.
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And these are just essential, non-negotiable ways of a presence-centered man.
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First of all, we learn how to draw near, right?
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I mean, God said, draw near to me and I will draw near to you.
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Because the problem is we wander and we've got to come back. Draw near.
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And then as we draw near, one of the ways of a presence-centered man is he learns to commune.
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Through the word of God and the spirit of God and prayer, we learn how to commune with God.
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And we learn that the Bible is not some static dead book that we just read to
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try to get some information.
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Jesus is on every page. He's talking. It is the living, breathing word of God.
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And so we go to the Bible to encounter him and let him encounter us.
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And in prayer, we learn how to not do just kind of perfunctory,
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throw on a little prayer list up to God.
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But how, as Jesus said, to enter in to the throne room, to shut the door and
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pray to our father, how to really communicate with God.
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And we realize that we can do that 24-7.
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And as we're communing with God, though, we begin to see the sin and the stain
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and the defilement that we picked up along the way in our life.
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And so there has to be cleansing.
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This is one of the ways. It's one of the habits. It's one of the essential elements
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of the life of a presence-centered man.
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We are in the constant process, as Paul says, of making sure we have a clear
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conscience before God and before man, both vertically and horizontally.
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We keep the roof off and the walls down.
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Sometimes that has to happen with a monumental cleansing because we've gone
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for a while. and there's all kinds of junk that needs to be recognized and acknowledged
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and confessed to the Lord.
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But the maturing presence-centered man keeps short accounts.
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His heart is tender because he's in the presence of God.
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And when he slips away, he immediately recognizes it.
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And the quicker he learns to seek the cleansing of the Lord and clearing his
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conscience before the Lord, clearing clearing his conscience before anybody
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else that he's harmed or sinned against,
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the more he is able to stay in God's presence.
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Now there's another element, and that is filling, filling.
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When we're in God's presence, we realize something. God has an agenda.
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I mean, God's not just sitting around in heaven thinking, I wonder what I'll do today.
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No, he has a perfect, divine, glorious mission, right?
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And there are things that he wants us to do with him. What's incredible is it's a co-mission.
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I mean, when Jesus said these last words on earth,
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I want you to go and everywhere you're going, I want you to make disciples and
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baptize them and teach them everything I've taught you. And by the way, I'm with you.
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This is a co-mission, not just your mission, not just my mission. It's a co-mission.
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And I want you vitally involved, and I've equipped you for this,
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and I have a sphere for you to do that commission that I don't have for anybody else.
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So very quickly, we start realizing this great agenda, this great mission,
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and God wants us somehow to be involved in that, and then we realize the second
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thing, we don't have the power to do that.
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Now, when we try to do it, even when we try to just walk a holy life,
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we fail miserably on our own.
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When we try to overcome habits or deal with addictions, we just can't do it, right?
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We don't have the power. Sometimes it takes us a long time to come to the end
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of ourself and really realize that.
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So we realize to accomplish his work and join with him in this great mission,
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we just don't have the power.
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Now, what's fascinating is, is we look in the book of Acts that's given to us
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for instruction, and we see these first Christians in the early days of the
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church, and they did have hand of the power.
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Oh my goodness, they were filled with power.
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They were filled with joy. They were filled with boldness.
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And we say, what did they have that we're not experiencing?
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They were filled with the Holy Spirit.
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The Spirit of God came at Pentecost, just as Jesus promised,
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so that the Holy Spirit would live inside of every believer.
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And they would have everything they needed, wisdom, life, love,
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grace, and power to do everything God was going to ask them to do.
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And I want you to know that there are 28 chapters in the book of Acts and the
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Holy Spirit is mentioned 59 times.
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In fact, it could well be named instead of the Acts of the Apostles,
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the acts of the Holy Spirit, because it was the Spirit of God moving through yielded believers,
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that accomplish the work that God wants to accomplish.
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Just listen to this, Acts 4, 8, so Peter, filled with the Spirit, spoke.
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Acts 7, 55, Stephen, while he was being stoned, being full of the Holy Spirit.
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Acts 6, 5, they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit.
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Acts 4, 31, the people were afraid because persecution had started and people were being killed.
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And it said they prayed. And when they had prayed, the place where they'd gathered
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together was shaken. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.
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And they went out and spoke the word of God with boldness. And there's a little
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summary statement, Acts 13, 52, and the disciples,
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these early disciples, this is how it worked, were continually filled with joy
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and with the Holy Spirit.
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You know, in the American church, something terrible has happened.
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We've ignored the Holy Spirit.
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And ignoring the Holy Spirit, we are substituting the almighty power of God
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for human ingenuity and human frail power.
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And it is a disastrous exchange. change.
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It cuts the power line to the world, and the world gets us and not Christ.
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And they look at the church with its weakness, and we name the name of Christ,
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and they think that's all there is, and there's so much more.
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So very quickly, what is the filling of the Holy Spirit, and why is it one of
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the established ways of a presence-centered man.
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We can look at many passages, but one of the classics is the command given to us in Ephesians 5.18.
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Do not get drunk with wine, but be, here's the tense, be being filled with the Holy Spirit.
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The filling of the Holy Spirit is the believer's conscious,
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continual choice to yield control to the Holy Spirit who lives within us.
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Can I say that one more time? It's the believer's conscious choice.
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Continual choice to yield control to the Holy Spirit who lives within us.
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And let's just tear that sentence apart. It's a conscious step, right?
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It's awareness. Hey, I'm filled with myself. That's why I'm acting like this.
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That's why I'm talking like this to my children.
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That's why I'm having these wrong thoughts. I'm not filled with God.
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So it's a repentance and it's a turning and it's a coming back to the Lord.
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Oh, God, forgive me that cleansing we talked about and a conscious choice.
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Lord, I need you controlling me, not me.
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So it's conscious step. It's a controlling step. It is literally saying,
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Lord, I want you to be the driver.
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I want you to be the Lord. I want you to be the king.
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We've often thought about this as a throne in our heart, right? And somebody's ruling.
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If you're a believer, Christ is in you, but he may be a resident,
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as one man said, but not president.
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He may be pushed off the throne temporarily, and you've kind of taken the reins.
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I want to leave this. I want to say what I want to say to my wife.
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I want to make this decision.
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And there needs to be cleansing. And then this conscious control yielded back to the Holy Spirit.
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And by the way, it's a continual step. The tense of the verb is literally be being filled.
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And why does it say that? Because sin interrupts this, right?
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I mean, when we seize control, we've just interrupted the filling or the control of the Holy Spirit.
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And we need to realize what we've done and come back to him and repent and ask
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him to take control once again, the filling of the Holy Spirit.
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And I want to tell you something, and that is that a man or a woman or a student,
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who is filled with God's Spirit is a mighty instrument in the hands of God.
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In fact, the most powerful instrument on earth.
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Because when we're filled with his spirit, we're filled with his power.
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We're led by his spirit and all the right paths for his namesake.
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So we're where we should be doing what we should do with the power that we need.
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And we bear great fruit. The fruit of the spirit that Galatians 5 talks about. God.
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And Kyle, we bear the fruit of joining in the work of God and seeing God do through us exactly,
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what he was doing when he was on earth, seeking and saving those who are lost.
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One of the ways of a presence-filled man or woman.
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Yeah, Bill, man, you're sitting here sharing those three C's,
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you know, conscious awareness of the work of the Spirit of God and the continual
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desire and seeking for and then making the choice to be dependent.
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You know, I think one of the greatest affronts to the work of God in our life
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personally and in our church is our lack of dependence on the Spirit's power.
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You know, I think that we have for so long got the best we can possibly do.
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And it's not working. And when God never intended for us not to be tethered
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to his power, you know, and for us to live.
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And, man, you're just sitting here. I was thinking, you know,
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we would, if somebody came to you today, Bill, and said, man,
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would you pray that I would just cultivate my relationship with the Father,
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with God the Father? Man, you would be like, amen.
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And the church would celebrate. Man, look at that man or woman desiring for
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greater intimacy with the work of God the Father in their life.
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In the same way, somebody came up to me and said, man, would you just pray that
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I would know Jesus more intimately and just really walk with Him, follow Him?
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We would all celebrate, man, pray for that guy.
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But if someone were to say, man, would you pray for me that I would cultivate
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my relationship with God the Holy Spirit?
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I think the enemy has robbed. There's fear around that. You know,
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there's a second guess that some, and obviously there's been things that's moved us that way.
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But God intended for us to have a relationship with the Spirit.
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That's right. And just think of it. Let's take that one step,
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that analogy one step further.
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We would rejoice if somebody came up and said, would you pray for that?
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Think about what God feels. when we say, God, would you fill me with yourself? Amen.
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Because he knows that's the only way that it works, right?
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Apart from me, you can do nothing, Jesus said. So all of these things,
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you just start to see, Kyle.
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How all of these things, they have to become established patterns in our life For us to experience,
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you know, to go from zero to 60, you know, you don't do that in a millisecond.
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And to go from I don't even know Christ to coming to Christ,
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to becoming a man who experiences God's presence occasionally.
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To becoming a man or a woman who knows how to walk in his presence without ceasing.
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God is establishing his ways he's doing it through his ways but he's,
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Asking us to cooperate in our ways of drawing near, cleansing,
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filling, all of these things.
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And there's two more we're going to see in these next two podcasts.
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Yeah. Well, man, Bill, I love it. I know we want to pray it in.
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And as you're just sharing that, I know you recognize this.
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There are certain aspects of our faith and being in the family that you just
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recognize pretty quick.
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Some authenticity and things that are real.
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And I'll tell you, the longer I walk with the Lord, the more I have a kindred
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and long for when I'm around someone that just has God's life pouring out of them.
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And you just you just recognize, man, there's more to him, more to her than is merely them.
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And it's just it's the God's spirit, man, is rivers of living water.
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That was the promise of Jesus.
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Whoever believes in me out of his heart would flow rivers of living water.
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So, Bill, maybe you could walk us in our listeners today into just positioning
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and praying for just a fresh feeling of God's spirit.
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Yeah, let's let's do that. So I want we want to ask our listeners to join us. Don't just listen.
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Join us in prayer right now. And so I wonder if you would take a moment and
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just thank the Lord for his relentless pursuit of you, that he's been calling you.
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He came to disciple you through all the saints of all the ages.
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As they model this, he came to dwell with us and then he came to indwell us by his Holy Spirit.
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And would you just thank him for a minute? Lord, thank you for that this always starts with you.
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It starts with your ways. It starts with what you're doing.
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I'm just so grateful. And Father,
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we just have to tell you, we are stunned that you love us this much.
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You prove your love for us. And that while we're yet sinful,
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you keep pursuing us, even dying and rising again for us. So just thank you.
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And then I wonder if you would just draw near, just walk into the throne room.
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You have the right to be there because of Christ and to come boldly.
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Even if you're sinful and needy, that's when you really need to come.
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So just draw near to him right now.
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Lord, I want to draw near. I want to commune with you.
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I want to listen to you. And Lord, I want you to teach me.
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I ask you to teach me how to pray without ceasing, how word-driven prayer all
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day long with you. Lord, would you teach me how to do that?
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And Father, keep showing me everything in my life that's not right with you
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so I can exercise myself to have a clear conscience before God and man,
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nothing between my soul and the Savior.
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And Father, now we come to this matter of being controlled by you,
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being filled by your Holy Spirit.
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Thank you that that can happen because you have placed your spirit in us.
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Thank you that you want that to happen more than anything else.
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And right now, Father, all of us that are praying, we consciously repent of
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the ways in which we have been filled with ourself.
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Our thinking, our mind, our ways. Lord, forgive us.
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And Father, we gladly yield control to you.
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We give you our mind. We give you our body.
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We give you our eyes to see and our ears to hear and our tongue to speak and our feet to walk.
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Lord, we give you this day.
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Control us through this day. We give you every relationship we're going to have,
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every encounter with anybody.
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Lord, would you control by your spirit? Would you control us in every one of those relationships?
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And Father, would you flow through us just as you promised, like rivers of living water?
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And not only quenching our thirst, but quenching the thirst of men and women
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far from God who don't have any idea how to find you and how you're pursuing them.
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And so, Father, just keep us today filled with your Holy Spirit.
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And Lord, we're going to say amen.
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And regardless of whether there's any fireworks going off or rockets or feelings
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in our soul, we're going to believe by faith that you said be filled with the Holy Spirit.
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And when we surrender to that, we are filled with the Holy Spirit.
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And we're going to move in the power of the Holy Spirit and walk by the Spirit.
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So thank you for that, Lord. I pray this would be this kind of praying would
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be the daily experience of our life in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Amen.
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Well, Bill, thank you for sharing that truth, man.
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I want to really encourage our listeners. Listeners, we've been on a journey
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through, honestly, a study on the presence-centered life, and there's so much good truth here.
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I would encourage you to take some time, go back and listen, look at the show notes.
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I mean, really ask the Lord what He's saying to you personally and how to apply it.
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And then as always, I just take a moment today. If these truths are impacting
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you, share it with somebody.
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I mean, maybe put a group text together and let some people know that are in
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your circle that, hey, God's speaking to me through these things.
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I'd love to get your thoughts and get a conversation started with them and maybe
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some others in your church or the broader faith community.
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And any of these things, resources are available at onecry.com to continue your spiritual journey.
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We're honored to be on it with you. We look forward to you being back next week.
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Music.