Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #161 The Presence Centered Life (13 - Abiding in God's Presence)

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#161 The Presence Centered Life (13 - Abiding in God's Presence) · The OneCry Podcast

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  That's why we are as Christians. We experience the presence of God.
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  We find every single thing that we need there. It's so precious. It's so wonderful.
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  Music.
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  And then we see something, a little door opens into the world and the flesh
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  and the devil, we get distracted and we just bolt.
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  And for a day, for a week, for a month, for a year, we miss the presence of
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  God and everything flows from the presence of the Lord.
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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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  Well, welcome to the One Cry Podcast. I'm Kyle Reno. This is Bill Eliff.
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  Bill, Bill, how are you doing today, buddy?
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  Man, I'm doing good. I got my Bible.
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  Yeah. I got my coffee.
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  I got my little iPad, which is the source of everything that is in my brain.
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  And I got a good friend. I got my good buddy right here beside me and all these
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  wonderful listeners that are just sitting here saying, Hey, what you got for us today?
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  Yeah. You ready to roll? I'm ready, man. Ready to roll.
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  Well, you have, man, been a great guide on an awesome spiritual journey about
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  the present centered life.
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  And today, man, we are in one way sort of full circle, bringing it back to a
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  truth about abiding, which made me think, listen, you know this,
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  and we'll share this with our listeners.
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  I'm married way out of my league, right? All my stars.
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  More than most men. Thank you. I'm totally.
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  I mean, most people are kind of like this. Yeah, yeah. And when you guys,
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  it's like, you know. Yeah, yeah. You have always made it a point to make that point.
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  Well, and it's not, you don't need to feel worse about yourself.
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  It's just how incredible Katie is. I just want to say that in light of our friendship,
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  though, you have always made that abundantly clear.
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  But one of the things that still blows me away is every day,
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  every day, how Katie and I, we've had this practice in our marriage, and it's because of her,
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  that she wants face-to-face relationships.
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  You know, and so it don't matter what my day's been like, what season we're in.
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  It don't matter if we got five kids like and because of early days before there
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  was kids, we adopted a practice of just learning how to be with one another
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  and converse and engage.
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  And it cultivated our relationship. So one of the I'd say one of the things
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  that's been best for our marriage is learning how to be with one another and give priority to it.
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  And that's because she won't like, you know, crazy. She wanted that relationship
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  with me, which I don't completely understand.
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  But I know that today, man, you're going to talk about the reality of that abiding
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  relationship. So walk us into that truth.
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  Right. And, you know, with our wives, with our mates, we we go to work.
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  We do this, we run on air, but you look across the course of your life and you're staying put.
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  We remain together. We're going to be together. And that's what God desires.
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  Now, we've seen this foundational truth that God really wants this unbroken
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  daily relationship with us.
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  But we've got to cooperate with him. There are things we have to do in that.
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  But his presence is what we most desperately need.
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  And surprisingly, our presence with him is what he most desires.
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  It delights him. He intends for this to be, right, this ongoing relationship in his presence.
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  We've seen over the last weeks how God has pursued us. and then we begin to
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  see how we must pursue him every single day.
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  And Kyle, we've looked at these ways, if you could call it that.
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  God has his ways, but the ways of a presence-centered man or woman,
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  they're established and developed over time. We know how to draw near.
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  We know how to stay in communication, to talk through the word and prayer.
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  We know how to deal with sin through cleansing and clearing our conscience.
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  We know that we need to be filled and controlled by the Holy Spirit,
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  that we don't have enough to join him in his task and his work just on our own strength.
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  And then as we saw last time, a present sinner man knows that this is all about joining God in his work.
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  It's about seeing every day, just having your eyes open and your ear open because
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  you're in the presence of God and you're praying without ceasing.
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  You're listening and your heart is pliable.
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  So when the spirit says, like he did to Philip, get up and go join that chariot.
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  Or like he said, go talk to that waitress right there. Ask her how you could pray for her.
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  Or put your arm around a colleague and say, are you doing okay?
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  And just intervene. Just letting God move through you to do what he wants to
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  do. And that's how God gets his work done.
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  But there's one final truth we just must see.
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  And it's the ways of a presence-centered man. we have to learn to abide.
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  Now, Jesus in his final kind of, I call it the locker room talk of John 14 through 16,
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  the disciples were afraid Jesus was leaving and he pulls them all together and
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  says, hey guys, it's okay. Don't be afraid.
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  Let me tell you where I'm going and I'm going to to get a place ready for you.
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  And also, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit who's going to be with you even
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  more than I could, 24-7, because he's going to be with you and in you.
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  And he's going to give you the power to do everything that I ask you to do.
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  So that's why I can say, as I give you the commission, I'm with you always,
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  because my spirit is going to be literally inside of you. And then he comes in John 15.
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  And he has this great discourse on this important principle of abiding.
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  And let me just read a couple of verses. He says in verse four, abide in me and I in you.
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  As the branch cannot bear fruit unless it abides in the vine,
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  so neither can you unless you abide in me.
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  I am the vine and you are the branches. which is he who abides in me and I in
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  him, he bears much fruit for apart from me. Very important statement.
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  You can do nothing, nothing, nothing that matters, nothing that lasts.
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  And then he says in verse seven, if you abide in me and my words abide in you.
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  That's communing, then ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.
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  Because you see, my will is becoming your will. and you're thinking what I'm
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  thinking and you're doing what I'm initiating.
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  So if you abide in me and my words are now abiding in you, you can ask whatever
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  you wish and it will be done for you.
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  And my father is glorified.
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  He's magnified in this that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
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  Now, the word abide means to remain in a stable or fixed position.
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  Don't leave. Don't go away.
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  Don't wander. Just to stay.
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  I've got a little dog that I love, Rosie, the Wonder Dog, but I'm not going to,
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  she doesn't abide real well. She has this terrible habit.
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  Every time the front door is opened, she just takes off.
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  And, you know, if I had done what I should have done, I would have trained her.
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  And if I had trained her, I could say, stay, and she would just stay.
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  But I watch people with their dogs say, stay, stay, stay, stay.
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  And that dog is just fidgeting and running around. That's why we are as Christians.
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  We experience the presence of God. We find every single thing that we need there.
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  It's so precious. It's so wonderful.
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  And then we see something, a little door opens into the world and the flesh
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  and the devil, we get distracted and we just bolt.
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  And for a day, for a week, for a month, for a year, we miss the presence of
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  God and everything flows from the presence of the Lord.
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  That's why in this passage in John 15, it's fascinating.
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  Jesus uses the word abide 11 times in 10 verses.
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  It's like the disciples were thinking, well, Lord, what about abide?
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  Well, but he said abide. Well, what if it gets too hard?
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  Abide. But what if problems come? Abide. But what if there's a better offer?
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  Abide, abide, abide, abide.
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  I just, the secret of a presence-centered life is a man who's learned to live
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  in the presence of the Lord and to stay there.
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  Now, why does Jesus have to remind us of this?
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  Why does he have to say this 11 times in 10 verses to his disciples?
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  Well, two things really pull us away. Number one, distractions. Distractions.
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  We have these enemies and they're after us all the time.
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  And the Bible describes them as the world, all its philosophies and ideas and
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  baubles and attractions and temptations, the world, and then the flesh.
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  He means by that our mere humanity, the weakness of our flesh.
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  Those areas where we still have an unrenewed mind and untamed emotion and and
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  unbroken will, and we just yield to our flesh.
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  We give over to the cravings of the flesh, and it just pulls us away from the
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  simplicity and purity of devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ.
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  It pulls us away from the Lord's presence. And then the devil.
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  And Paul was very clear about this. He said, your battle is not against flesh and blood.
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  It's against principalities and powers and world forces of this present darkness
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  and spiritual wickedness and heavenly places. He says, you've got to battle,
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  and you've got to put on the armor against this, and you've got to pray at all times.
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  You've got to remain in the presence of God at all times, commuting with him and talking to him.
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  So distractions, if we're not careful. So I just want you to envision in your
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  mind a young believer who's just come to Christ,
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  and the world is still real strong and the flesh is still real weak and the
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  devil is just trying to get him off track early.
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  And so he just keeps bolting out the door.
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  He experiences the presence of
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  God. He comes to a worship service and he's just there and it's so rich.
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  He reads his Bible and he meets with the Lord so rich, but he just bolts quickly.
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  Versus a matured Christian who has just learned there's no place like home.
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  There's just no place like home. There's no other place I want to be.
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  And he knows how to abide.
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  He knows how to recognize the distractions when they come and deal with them
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  so he won't grieve or quench the Holy Spirit and move out of the presence of God.
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  But the other thing that distracts us in this life and that pulls us away are
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  not only distractions, but what I would just call difficulties.
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  And I'm just lumping a lot of things in there.
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  Trouble, tragedy, problems, conflict, hardship, confusing things that happen.
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  And you say, why did difficulties kind of pull us away from the presence of God? God.
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  Well, we're like growing children and something happens that we don't understand
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  or that we don't know how to handle.
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  And we don't know why it's happening.
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  We can do one of two things. We can run to the Lord and he's got everything
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  that we need, or we run away.
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  We listen to what the world says. We come up with our own ideas. is.
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  We get mad and irritated. We respond in the wrong way.
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  But I want to tell you something. You know, Tozer said this.
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  He said, it's doubtful if God can ever use a man greatly until he's hurt him deeply.
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  Now, if you're not a strong believer, that little phrase might disturb you.
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  But if you've walked with the Lord and you're secure in understanding his love
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  for you and his faithfulness and the beauty of it,
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  not the harshness, the beauty of his sovereignty.
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  And you know that God, as Spurgeon said, God's too good to be unkind,
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  and he's too wise to be mistaken.
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  And when you cannot trace his hand, you can always trust his heart.
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  And so when difficulties come, you draw near.
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  It pushes you further. And you know, in light of those difficulties,
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  you're going to get the right perspective.
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  You're going to understand what's going to happen, and you're going to see the
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  amazing sufficiency of Christ.
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  And you're going to experience what Paul talks about in his Corinthian letters
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  when he says, God comforts us in all.
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  That word means comes alongside and helps us. He comforts us in all of our afflictions
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  so that we may comfort you with a comfort we've received from God.
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  God trains us in those times of difficulty, doesn't he?
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  And instead of pushing us away, the presence-centered man, listen carefully,
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  has learned how to abide.
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  He's learned how to remain. He's learned how to stay put.
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  He's learned that there's no better place. There's no substitute than coming close to the Father.
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  There's nothing better to being at home in the presence of God.
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  Years ago, when I first began to realize and the Lord began to show me that
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  he lived inside of me and that he could live through me. And it was just a thrilling time.
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  It was in the early days of the Jesus movement. And I remember hearing cassette
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  tapes we had back then, Kyle.
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  And they were, you know, I just listened to so many great men.
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  And one of those was a man named Major Ian Thomas. And he quoted a poem,
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  and I've never forgotten it. He said this.
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  It goes like this. When Jesus died for me on Calvary, he paid the penalty for
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  all of my sin, and he suffered all the pain my sinful heart gained,
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  and now his spirit witnesses with him.
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  I'm just a suit of clothes that Jesus wears.
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  My body is the house in which he lives, And my voice is his to talk and my feet are his to walk.
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  I'm just a suit of clothes that Jesus wears.
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  He rose again to bring abundant grace, to justify us before the Father's face.
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  I live no more, but he lives out his life through me.
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  And I'm just a vessel that's fashioned by his grace. And so,
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  as life goes on, I care not come what may.
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  He carries all my burdens and my cares.
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  For me, the battle's done, for he's the victory one.
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  I'm just a suit of clothes that Jesus wears.
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  I'm telling you, just sitting in that truth right there, one,
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  we need that quote and that pull of whatever you might call it in the show notes,
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  because that is fantastic truth.
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  And if you rightly believe it, you would live into that.
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  And I'm sitting here thinking, I mean, I studied years ago, Bill,
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  John 15, where it talked about Jesus being the true vine, where the branches.
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  And the reality is I studied how plants work.
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  A branch doesn't pull resources or life from the vine.
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  It merely avails itself for the vine to pour life into it.
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  Its only responsibility is to stay open.
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  And if the branch will stay open, the vine will always provide the life.
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  And I'm just thinking about in light of the presence-centered life.
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  God is not playing a game, and the Lord is looking to and fro across the face
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  of the earth for those that might, through these things that you've taught these
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  weeks, might position themselves for his presence.
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  Man, so I just I wonder, Bill, in light of a sort of putting the exclamation
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  point and I better probably to say the comma on this thought,
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  would you just pray for our listeners and for ourselves and across our nation
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  that that the Lord would awaken a presence centered people and and that we would
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  take some tangible steps even coming out of this podcast today? day.
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  Yeah. And, you know, I want to say to everybody, pray.
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  We're wanting to put these truths in a book and maybe even a study,
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  like a small group study.
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  But more than that, I want to encourage you to recognize that these ways of
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  a presence-centered man, man,
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  if you're feeling off and you just feel like, man, something's not right in my spiritual life,
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  evaluate yourself against these ways, right?
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  Because this is not Bill's ways. These are just biblical ways right out of the scripture.
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  And it may be you're not clean.
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  It may be you're not communing. It may be that you're not being filled.
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  It may be that you're not joining God, or it may be that you've been distracted
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  or difficulties come and you're just not abiding.
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  You know, so it becomes a great evaluative tool for you to keep going back and
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  back to establish yourself.
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  And so like the branch, you're just staying attached.
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  And I thought as you were saying that, you know, for the Christian,
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  it's not a it's not a pull technology.
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  It's a push technology. It's not we have to pull it out of God.
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  It's that God is pushing it through us as long as we're abiding,
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  abide, abide, abide, remain in his presence.
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  So, Father, we thank you for these rich truths.
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  Lord, I just think about how just in my own life, how many men and women have
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  poured these truths into me?
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  How many years, Lord, of just you meeting us early in the morning and just adding
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  one thing and another thing and another thing?
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  And how many times have I sinned and you just showed me, Bill,
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  when you walk away from my presence, it's always disastrous.
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  How many times have you had to let me go to the end of myself till I turn in repentance?
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  How many moments that I've stood up in my own strength when I needed to be filled
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  with the Holy Spirit and you taught me a valuable lesson or times when I was
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  filled with a spirit and you You moved in power.
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  So, Father, we're just so grateful that you are molding us.
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  Into the image of your son. You're more interested in doing that than we ever could be.
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  And Lord, you'll just do it if we halfway cooperate with you.
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  And I pray, Father, that all of us would aggressively cooperate with your activity,
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  so that we could live and move in the presence of the Lord.
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  Thank you for what you're teaching us. And we pray our lives will bear fruit.
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  And just as Jesus told his disciples, hearing as my father glorified,
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  that you bear much fruit and prove that you're one of his sons and daughters.
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  And thank you in your precious name. Amen.
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  Amen. Well, again, thank you to our listeners for giving us this time and going
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  on the journey through this series on The Presence-Centered Life.
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  I really want to encourage you, man, take time with these truths until you're transformed.
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  I mean, because God is speaking to me. I got thoughts in my own,
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  even in these last weeks, listening as Bill shared, it's called for great adjustments.
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  And I feel, I would say to you, Bill, to encourage you, I told some people this,
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  I feel closer in my friendship to God than I have in a while.
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  I've been praying, been seeking the Lord by God's grace, been doing that,
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  but I feel closer in just my friendship with God, just that He wants us to be with Him.
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  So I encourage our listeners, man, make more time for Him.
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  Share this. If you need additional resources, onecry.com is a great place to
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  find resources in your journey toward personal revival and let somebody else
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  know what God's doing in you and how He's using this podcast even in that story.
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  So we look forward to being back here with you next week.
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  Music.