“Jesus, you’re all I want! You’re everything to me! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for your sweet presence! Your presence satisfies the deepest longings of my soul!”
These were a few of the sentiments gushing forth from my heart in tears and laughter while being saturated and wonderfully overwhelmed by the Spirit in worship throughout last week in a leaders conference at Bethel Church. It was a “Jehovah Sneaky” God set up for Suzanne and myself as we arrived thinking we were there mostly to lean into our dear friends in Redding, but He overwhelmed both of us in the best way imaginable by His Spirit, assuring us of His enduring and endearing love.
How do you fully explain this Presence…it’s within you and everything you ever wanted, yet something we don’t yet know how to continually tap into. His sweet presence was intoxicating and it saturated us with His peace, with His joy, with His pleasure and with His passion. It was something we hadn’t experienced like this in a very long time. It reminded us of decades past when we encountered Him in such beautiful and transforming ways yet, in many ways, this also felt entirely new.
He was reminding us of our deepest desire—the first line of Blazing Fire’s vision statement— “to encounter God’s transforming presence!” This is the one thing we’ve ever truly wanted, and that desire came straight from his heart into ours.
We never wanted to be a church that has worship services. We always wanted to be a family who encounters the Lord’s presence together. It’s His presence alone that transforms us. It’s only His presence that satisfies the deepest places of our souls. It’s His presence alone that puts to rest all of our fears, anxieties and deep disappointments. Encountering one moment of his transforming presence washes all of that away.
This past week at Blazing Fire, we lingered in worship, read about our romance with Jesus from the Song of Songs, shared a bit of what I wrote here, and gave Holy Spirit space and room in our hearts. Oh, what an amazingly wonderful plan! Times of sweet silence bubbled up into sweet laughter, releasing joy for sorrow, lightness for heaviness and peace for striving. Friends, this is the miracle of the Gospel—the Presence of Jesus in us that transforms us. We are the ones who complicate things. But we can choose life again, hope again, Jesus again. Jesus and Jesus alone to restore and reset us back to our original settings—our authentic, love-filled, light drenched, in Christ selves.
Let’s go on that journey together. There truly is no other journey worth going on.
“Here’s the one thing I crave from Yahweh, the one thing I seek above all else:
I want to live with him every moment in his house, beholding the marvelous beauty of Yahweh, filled with awe, delighting in his glory and grace.”
Psalm 127:4 (TPT)
And you know where he has chosen as his home, right? His house, his home, his temple is in you! Read the verse again with this new covenant reality.
With Love, Brent
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