Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #157 The Presence Centered Life (9 - Consistently Communing in God’s Presence)

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#157 The Presence Centered Life (9 - Consistently Communing in God’s Presence) · The OneCry Podcast

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  But when I first came to faith, I was immersed, you know, I didn't grow up in
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  church, I was immersed into relationship and honestly got the privilege of just.
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  Music.
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  Being around men that were white hot for God.
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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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  Music.
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  Well, welcome once again to the OneCry Podcast. We're so glad to see you or
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  hear you or talk to you or whatever it is today.
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  I'm Bill Eliff, and this is Kyle Reno. And we're coming to you from parts unknown.
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  We're actually in two different cities. That's awesome. But we're right here
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  on the same podcast. I don't know how that works.
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  It's crazy, bro. It's a multiverse. It is crazy. It's a miracle.
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  Miracle. It's a miracle.
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  But we're we we love doing this. I guess you kind of get that.
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  I, Kyle, I just I have I wake up in the mornings that we're recording and I'm
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  excited because I just I tell you this. I like being with you. Yeah.
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  I'm glad we got that now. We have that recorded now. And that's right.
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  It's in there. And it'll never go off the Internet.
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  I like Kyle Reno. There you go. And we like you, our listeners.
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  And we're just honored that you give us a few minutes of the day.
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  I hope you'll listen all the way through podcasts.
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  Some of the best, most important things we say are at the end.
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  And so sometimes you can't, but you could come back and catch it at another
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  time. We're in a series, Kyle, that to me is.
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  Maybe the most important one we've ever done. We're talking about the present-centered life.
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  How do we build a present-centered life?
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  We've talked about building a present-centered church, but this is for every
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  mom and dad and every elder, every pastor, every Sunday school teacher,
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  every student, Couldn't even every young child who wants to catch some of these principles,
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  how do we live a life that flows from the presence of God?
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  And last week, we talked about drawing near.
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  This week, we're talking about that you have to commune with the Lord.
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  This is one of the ways, the six ways we're talking about that are hallmarks
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  of a presence-centered life.
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  You've had some men in your life, Kyle. I know you've talked about them.
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  Before the podcast, we talked about one in particular who really taught you this.
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  Yeah. Well, I think the statement comes to mind. I don't know whose statement
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  it is. I've heard many people quote it.
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  You teach what you know, you reproduce who you are. wow
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  and and that's a power i mean we can transfer information
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  say that again yeah you you teach what
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  you know you reproduce who you are you know
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  and i and i think that a lot of times unfortunately
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  you know we can pass on information we can pass and we need good information
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  we need good truth but but you reproduce intimacy with god like it and what
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  i think one of the greatest gifts god God gave me early and Bill, I'd say this to you.
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  I like you too, but you're one of those men that you get near you.
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  You learn how to walk more deeply with God, you know?
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  And so that God gave me the blessing of walking a stage and,
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  you know, a season of my life with you and learning that.
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  And, but when I first came to faith, I was immersed, you know,
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  I didn't grow up in church.
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  I was immersed into relationship and honestly got the privilege of just being
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  around men that were white hot for God, white hot for God.
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  So I didn't know anything else. And so, and you know me, I'm loud mouth enough
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  to ask questions, you know.
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  So I remember being 21 years old, a couple of years in the faith,
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  freshly surrendered to ministry.
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  And Steve Gaines asked me to ride along with him as he went to go preach a men's
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  retreat at a little camp.
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  You know, it was a one day drive there, him preach, come back.
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  And I'm in the car with him and there's a stack of index cards,
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  you know, right there in the console in the middle. And I said, hey, what's that?
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  He said, well, it's my prayer cards. I said, what's a prayer card?
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  And he said, well, it's things that I know I need to be praying for.
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  But if I don't have a reminder, I'll forget to pray for them.
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  You know, from promises I have for my kids based out of scripture,
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  things I'm praying for the church, You know, things that I'm asking God based
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  off his character and nature to do right now in my ministry and life.
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  You know, I got cards for preaching.
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  Well, you know what I did when I got home? I went and got me some cards,
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  you know, and and I wrote as God would reveal things to me that I need to be praying for.
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  I put it down, you know, scriptures that get promises started.
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  God started giving me his word.
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  I put it in a prayer card. And I can tell you that that shaped in a practical
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  way how I'd commune, you know, like that I would walk in and go,
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  hey, Lord, here's the things that I notice in your heart. Right.
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  Help these things to happen. And I think what I what I learned from Steve and
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  from Jet and from you, you know, that these things were were helpful.
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  But it was ultimately to help me get to him. I can remember,
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  and I've told you this story, and I'm bragging on him.
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  I can remember walking the hall where Steve's office was, and everybody that
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  worked on staff at Gardendale in that season, and he was out of the way.
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  This was sure not for people to see or to hear.
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  But I think God divinely ordained moments where people would have to be down
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  that hallway to come by there.
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  So that you could hear him in their communion with the Lord,
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  worshiping, singing, praying, you know, seeking the Lord.
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  And it just it was it was so authentic and real that you'd stop.
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  I remember stopping and going, I want to be a kind of that kind of man.
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  Yeah, absolutely. I want to be the kind of guy that knows how to get to God.
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  You know, and so you learn things. And, you know, Kyle, I know you're too humble
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  to say it, but I know you and I know your ways.
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  You use your prayer cards this morning and then in the morning before in the morning before.
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  And it's become the regular rhythm of your life.
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  So we're talking about how do you live a presence centered life?
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  And we've seen that God is constantly pursuing us.
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  But we've got to cooperate. We've got to pursue him.
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  And we identified last time, Kyle, six ways that we experience continually,
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  that we live in the presence of God.
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  And the first one was drawing near. We've got to consciously choose to draw near to the Lord.
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  And that's not just in a morning quiet time. It's all day long.
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  And then secondly, what we want to see today is we've got to learn how to commune
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  with God on a constant basis.
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  Now, I used this illustration a few weeks ago. If I got in a car with you and
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  I didn't know you and we drove a thousand miles and we never talked,
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  we still wouldn't know each other.
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  But if we talked for 10 hours, we would know each other.
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  You're not going to know God if you don't talk to him. and if you don't listen to him.
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  The Bible says about Mary, she was seated at the Lord's feet,
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  listening, listening to the Lord's word.
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  And that's personal.
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  That's not just, you know, Mary read a book about God and came to have some
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  new knowledge about God.
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  It was Mary listening to God, asking questions, talking to God.
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  And so if you're going to be a person who lives in the presence of God,
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  experiences the fullness of his presence all day long,
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  you must learn how to commune with God so much that people just say,
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  well, that's just the way he is.
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  He just talks with God all day long. I had one of our original elders in the
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  church that I've been at for many years.
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  We helped plant years ago.
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  His name was Don Dudgeon, great man. And you would talk to him about some concern.
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  And immediately, he'd just say, now, Lord, he'd have his eyes open.
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  He'd just say, now, Lord. And then he'd just talk to God about that need.
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  The first time he did that, it kind of freaked me out.
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  And then I realized he always did that. That's just the way he was.
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  He talked to God about anything and everything all day long.
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  And if you happen to be there, you got into that conversation too.
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  Because the basis of any relationship is communication. and the basis of experiencing
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  a daily personal relationship with God is communion with God.
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  And the beautiful thing is that God has given us.
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  Two tools, two means, and they're like two wings of a plane.
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  You can't make it without both of them.
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  And that's prayer and the word of God.
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  The apostle said in Acts 6, 4, we're going to get these deacons to take care of this practical need.
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  We're going to devote ourselves, and that word means be strong towards.
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  We're going to devote ourselves to two things more than anything else,
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  to prayer and to the ministering of the word of God.
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  So this is central. This is central.
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  You've got to learn how to commune with God.
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  And it's through those two means of prayer, word-driven prayer, we could say.
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  But you say, how do I do that? Well, let me just give you another two words, time and attention.
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  Time and attention. You're not going to experience the presence of God if you don't give him time.
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  You're not going to build a relationship with your wife or your husband if you don't give them time.
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  You're not going to have a real relationship with your children if you don't give them time, right?
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  I mean, that's how love is spelled in a family, T-I-M-E. E.
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  And there's got to be time that's given.
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  And there's got to be a turning to them, looking them in the eye, seeing them.
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  I remember one time, my daughter, one of my daughters, I don't know which one, I got four and four boys.
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  And she was trying to get my attention. She was in my, I was in my recliner.
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  I think I was watching the news or something. Finally, she reached up with both
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  little chubby hands, and she put them on either side of my face and said, Daddy!
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  And I looked right in her eyes. I wasn't giving her any attention.
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  There was time. She was in my lap, but no attention.
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  So if you want to commune with God, you've got to give him time and attention.
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  Now, in two or three ways. First of all, you've got to give him daily, deliberate time.
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  The Bible says in Mark 135, and we've talked about this a lot on this podcast.
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  But Jesus went out a great while before day.
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  Now, if that was just one time, you'd think, well, that's odd.
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  But you look at the life of Jesus, this was his way. Right?
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  If you ask the disciples about, man, where is he going? Why is he up before everybody else?
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  Why was he all night in prayer? They would have said to you,
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  oh, that's just the way he is.
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  Do people say that about you?
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  Well, you see, this is how you become a presence-centered man,
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  is you give God deliberate time.
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  And I don't know. Now, you know, maybe there are.
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  But I read a lot of biographies. I've read hundreds and hundreds of them through the years.
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  And I've been reading the scripture and then being around great men.
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  I don't know anybody who's been greatly used of God who has not had a daily
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  set apart, deliberate time with God.
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  They meet with him. It sets the day. And most of them do it in the morning,
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  maybe some at night. but most people I know do that in the morning.
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  And their reading is not just slogging through the Scripture.
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  It's not just reading a book so I can get knowledge.
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  Now listen to this. It's an experiential, Spirit-led reading of the Word of God.
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  You know why? Because they're listening to God.
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  The Bible says of itself, the word of God is alive and sharper than a two-edged sword.
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  And it goes down into the soul and it divides what's soulish and carnal from
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  what's spiritual and discerns the very thoughts and intents of our heart. You know why?
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  Because it's God's living, living, breathing word.
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  And when we listen to that and we give him our full attention, we hear from him, right?
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  So we have to give him daily time. I love the poem.
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  It's my favorite. Hangs in my wall on my study by J.C. Macaulay.
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  I read thy word, O Lord, each passing day, and in thy sacred page I am glad employed.
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  But this I pray, say from the killing letter,
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  teach my heart set free from human forms, the holy art of reading thee in every
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  line and precept, prophecy and sign till all my vision filled with thee.
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  Thy likeness shall reflect in me, not knowledge, but thyself my joy. For this I pray.
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  Do you have a daily time with the Lord? Every day that sets the course of your
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  day that brings you back into the presence of God.
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  Every man of God that's experiencing the presence of God has some daily time.
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  But then let's go one step further.
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  There's moment-by-moment time.
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  There's this running dialogue with God all through the day.
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  I've been in a thousand counseling sessions with church members and students
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  and college students and different people, and I'm sitting with them,
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  and they're pouring out their hearts, some complicated problem,
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  and I'm sitting there thinking, I don't have a clue what to tell them.
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  And all the time, looking right at them, eyes open, I'm praying,
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  Lord, you know exactly what to say. Would you speak to them?
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  It's amazing how the Lord will bring a scripture to mind.
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  Now, that scripture was found in my daily time, right, through the years,
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  or was memorized somewhere along the way.
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  He'll bring that scripture, and it's just the right prescription for them.
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  It's just the right pill. bill.
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  And to be like Don Dudgeon, praying all through the day about every single thing.
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  Lord, should I watch this? Should I eat this?
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  Should I go there? What do you want me to do here?
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  That constant running dialogue with God. And then we need set apart time.
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  Jesus said to his disciples, come apart with me and let's rest a while.
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  Jesus would go up and spend whole nights in prayer, right?
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  Because there's some times regularly that we need a course correction that's more than an hour.
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  It's more than two hours. It's a whole day.
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  We have a doctor in our church who regularly will take a sling chair and his
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  Bible and a jug of water and go up on a mountain and spend the day just reading
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  large amounts of Scripture.
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  He never comes back but what he's not changed. and he has fuel for the next
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  leg of the journey. He's communed with God.
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  He's met with God, and God has spoken to him.
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  So the word of God daily, constantly throughout the day, set apart times.
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  We give him time. We give him attention.
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  And then prayer, prayer that draws us into the presence of God.
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  I quote this by R.A. Torrey a lot from his little book, How to Pray, which you ought to read.
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  Torrey said, very much a so-called prayer, both public and private, is not unto God.
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  In order that a prayer should be really unto God, there must be a definite and
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  conscious approach to God when we pray.
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  In very much of our prayer, there's really but little thought of God.
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  God, we come into his presence, our mind is taken up with a thought of what
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  we need and is not occupied with a thought of the mighty and loving Father of whom we're seeking it.
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  If then we would pray aright, the first things we should do is to see that we
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  really get into his very presence.
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  Well, what a statement. Before a word of petition is offered,
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  we should have the definite and vivid consciousness that we are talking to God.
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  This is only possible by the Holy Spirit's power.
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  So we should look to the Holy Spirit to really lead us into the presence of God.
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  And we should not be hasty in words until he has actually brought us there.
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  Kyle, one of the practical ways, and you and I have experienced this many times,
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  but one of the practical ways that that's That's happened.
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  I've learned how to do that is what Jesus said in Matthew 6.6 when he was teaching us how to pray.
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  And he says, go into your closet, which he means just the inner room.
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  You step into the foyer of heaven and you shut the door.
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  There's something about shutting the door on yesterday, tomorrow,
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  distractions, because you're about to talk to the king. And then you turn and you pray to your father.
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  That image that he gave us has changed my prayer life.
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  So that when I start to pray, I just realize I'm going to shut the door on everything else.
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  And, you know, as Martin Lloyd-Jones said, he said, when I learned that principle
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  from Matthew 6.6, He said, I could be standing in a crowd of 10,000,
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  and it was just me and the Lord praying to him.
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  So there's something about giving him my attention, right?
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  I'm an attention in the word of God and prayer, both set times, running times.
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  If you want to experience the presence of God, you have got to learn how to
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  talk to him and listen to him all day long.
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  Yeah, I'm thinking about just the whole communion approach to God.
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  I'm coming here to be with you. And I think about his word.
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  You know, oftentimes, you know, Bill, we'll say this statement,
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  you know, what the Lord said to me or God spoke to me.
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  Yeah. And we often forget, probably some of our listeners say that.
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  And we often forget that that's an intimidating statement to many people.
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  What do you mean God spoke to you?
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  You know, I think one of the ways that you learn how to commune is how to discern the voice of God.
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  And one of the primary ways, the primary way that God speaks is through his word.
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  You know, and that if you learn, I had this thought as you were sharing earlier,
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  you know, people say, well, what does God sound like? Well, he sounds like scripture.
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  Yeah. He said, if you want to know, it goes back to, you know, the tone of your mom.
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  You know, you know that I was listening to my kids talk on the phone to my mother
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  and I just walked into the room.
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  And instantly I knew it was my mother because I know her tone.
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  You know, I just there's just there's something about her voice that I recognize.
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  Well, I think that you get to know God's voice through the verses of Scripture.
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  Like you just what is God's what does God sound like?
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  Right. And that's why you can
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  discern when somebody says something that doesn't sound like your father.
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  You're like, no, I don't sound like the Lord. I don't think either of us would say...
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  You know, if somebody says, well, you know, the Lord said to me,
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  and it's completely opposite of what Scripture says.
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  Yeah, right. We would say, well, you may have heard a voice, but it wasn't God.
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  Yeah, right. Sure. And we're not talking about an audible voice.
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  Sure. You know, I get frustrated a little bit with people who say in great theological
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  tones, you know, the Lord doesn't speak anymore.
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  Well, I get it that the Bible is finished and we have all we need,
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  everything for life and holiness. But it's a living word.
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  It's a living word. And those same people talk about a personal relationship with God.
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  Well, how could it be personal if we're not communing with God and we do that?
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  Here's the other dynamic as we're reading the Bible is his spirit.
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  And his spirit has come to teach us all things.
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  So I don't know if you want to call that I heard or a voice or what it is,
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  but it's the Spirit of God communing to us in our human spirit,
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  our mind, communing through the Word of God.
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  And we literally receive what we need from God. And then we commune with Him back.
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  And so that's the great privilege. Well, I think about Jesus, Bill.
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  I mean, what's the what what statement did Jesus use most in his physical life
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  that he has ears to hear? Let him hear.
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  Let him hear. And God is speaking. I mean, it's the Bible is everyone would agree.
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  And I will say this in the communion sense. Everyone agree that God's word is
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  not some religious artifact or some history that it is breathed out by God.
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  Right. It's alive. high. His living is active. He's sharper than a two-edged sword.
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  So it's not merely what God said. It is what God is saying.
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  I'll give us one more and then let's pray.
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  But Jesus, who came to show us not only who God was, but who man was to be. Right.
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  He said six times in John 5 through 16, I do nothing on my own initiative.
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  Yeah. And then he'd say things like this. What I hear my father say. Yeah.
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  That's what I say. Yeah. What I see my father doing. Now, how did he hear that?
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  How did he see that? Well, obviously, he saw that in prayer,
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  in communion with his father.
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  And so we have that privilege.
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  And not only that, Kyle, we have that blessed invitation.
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  God is constantly, with every means, trying to get us to the table with him.
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  Trying to get us into the throne room with him. Because he knows we can't do
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  anything, and our lives will miss their design and miss glorifying him if we're
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  not in communion with him.
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  It's one of the ways of a presence-centered life.
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  So let's pray this in. And Kyle, why don't you pray for us today and just lead
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  our listeners in a time of prayer for this whole issue of learning how to commune with God.
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  Yeah. Yeah. So let's all, because of the shed blood of Jesus and a veil that's
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  been torn, even if you're driving down the road, as Bill even illustrated earlier
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  in Matthew 6, let's enter in.
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  That there's no place that we belong more now because of faith in Christ's finished
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  work than in the presence of God.
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  We are seated with him in heavenly places.
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  So, as we enter in by faith, why don't you just take a moment there and say,
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  Lord, teach me how to commune with you.
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  Teach me how to be in your presence.
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  How to hear your voice as I open your word there.
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  How to carry on a conversation.
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  So, Father, I'm asking for each of us, in real ways, teach us how to be still
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  and know that you are God.
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  Help us to know how to enter in and to enjoy your presence, Lord.
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  How to sit and listen to your voice as we read verses of Scripture.
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  Lord, how to listen for the whisper of the Spirit as we pray. as we talk.
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  Lord, I pray that you would awaken even in our listeners and in those that they'll disciple.
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  God, a spiritual heritage of people that know how to be with their God,
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  how to commune with you deeply, Lord.
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  And I know the overflow of that is men and women that change the world.
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  And so we desire to be those kinds of followers of Christ. So teach us how to sit at the table.
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  Lord, let us hear the call today. day. My heart has heard you say,
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  come away and talk with me.
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  And our heart responds, Lord, I am coming.
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  We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
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  Amen. Amen. Well, again, thank you for so much for joining us today.
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  I want to remind you that this little book, The Essential Presence,
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  this is not the content of what we're talking necessarily,
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  but it's a 40-day book that will just help you get centered on the presence
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  of God and understand how to live there.
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  And it's available on the OneCry website.
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  And we're also working on a new book called The Present-Centered Life.
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  And we'll have that out hopefully pretty soon.
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  So thanks for joining us. And please join us next time.
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  We're going to talk about the third way of a presence in our life, and that's cleansing,
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  and the very practical way to do that so that you don't get something between
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  you and God or something between you and anybody else.
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  A very important subject, and I hope you'll join us.
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  Music.