![]() “DO NOT QUENCH THE SPIRIT” (1 Thessalonians 5:19).I delight in the metaphorical love language of the Song of Solomon expressing God’s passionate love for us and our love for Him. I also listen for Him speaking His love to me. Just as I like to frequently tell my wife Rita that I love her, so I like to often talk to God about my love for Him. “I AM MY BELOVED’S AND MY BELOVED IS MINE” (Song of Solomon 6:3).I sense that it is always God keeping awake wanting to speak to me. I listen for God’s voice in the night, treasuring the precious hours when I can’t go back to sleep. “I BLESS THE LORD WHO GIVES ME COUNSEL IN THE NIGHT ALSO MY HEART INSTRUCTS ME” (Psalm 16:7).I like to do that with a quick prayer, meditating on a Scripture verse, saying “Thank You Lord!”, or thinking on God’s love. David said that he made a conscious effort to frequently turn his thoughts to God during the day. “I KEEP THE LORD ALWAYS BEFORE ME” (Psalm 16:8).Being still with God helps me to experience Him as God in my life. Every day I make time to be still in God’s presence. “BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GODI” (Psalm 46:10).Here are some Scriptures that help many in their desire to practice the presence of God: Just as people often lack body awareness of what is going on inside them, so we can lack God awareness, not really knowing God alive within us. It takes practice to be intimately present to God. We are distracted like Martha we are caught up with many things (Luke 10:40-41). Brother Lawrence knew the secret that, while God is always lovingly present to us, we are not always present to Him. ![]() The Holy Spirit and Scripture lead me to believe this kind of intimate relationship can be experienced in what Brother Lawrence called, “Practicing the Presence of God”. I want the kind of relationship that makes me sing: “He walks with me and he talks with me, and He tells me I am His own!” I have long to grow in this kind of intimate relationship with God. Saint Augustine told how God is more intimate to us than we are to ourselves ( Confessions III, 6, 11) We can sing of God: “You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart!” God is far more than a logical deduction from a text, but a God flooding their hearts with His love. They actually do experience God in their lives. Throughout the Bible and throughout the life of the church, people tell of God as intimate to them. ![]() Don’t Bible expositors often say that in the Bible “to know” God means far more than head-knowledge? “To know” means an experiential heart-knowledge. Why, then, are we not experiencing the reality of today’s Scripture: God pours love into our hearts, the very center of our being. The Spirit is birthing in us His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and more (Galatians 2:22). The Spirit is getting rid of the old stuff, bringing in the new (2 Corinthians 5:17 Ephesians 2:10). And God’s Spirit is working away in us day by day renewing us on the inside (2 Corinthians 4:16). Why then do we not experience more often the presence of an infinitely loving God within us? We would know if someone moved into our homes and lived with us, so why is it that the God whom heaven and earth cannot contain (1 Kings 8:28) often lives within us unnoticed?Īfter all, Scripture does say the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are God’s children (Romans 8:16). What we mortals struggle to even imagine is the Gospel truth! We live in God and God lives in us, pouring His love into us. Now let’s end the thought experiment here: because what you have been thinking is not just your imagination, but reality! Jesus did promise that He and the Father would come and live within us and pour into us their love (John 14:20, 23). Stay with that imagining for a few moments… Now imagine that Being coming into you and pouring love into you. Imagine an infinite Being boundless in love, goodness, beauty, wisdom, power and justice. Through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. ![]() God’s love has been poured into our hearts ![]()
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