Tag: intimacy

Eternally Present

Justin Hibbard

There’s a story about a couple who had been married quite sometime. One afternoon they were driving through the countryside in their antique Buick – the type that have those front bench seats. The wife, who was leaning against the passenger door, turned to her husband, who was driving, and said, “Dear, do you remember when we used to sit together on this front seat and cuddle as you drove?” He turned to her and responded, “In twenty years, I haven’t moved.”

Our relationship with God has its ebbs and flows. There are the mountain tops and the valleys. Sometimes we feel closer to God than at other times. This is the focus of today’s Reflection in continuation with our series on Intimacy with God.

In the previous Reflection, we talked about how we refer to God’s location. We often refer to Him living in eternity, as though eternity were somewhere outside of our time and space. Let me offer you a different idea. Eternity is eternally present.

When God introduced Himself to Moses at the burning bush, He referred to Himself as I AM. Perhaps this is an extraordinary insight into the realm of eternity. You and I base our existence and even talk about our experiences in the context of a timeline. “I did this, I went there, I used to do this.” The past tense is likely the most common verb form used in our language. We also employ the future tense quite a bit as well – “I will do this later” or “I want to do this.”

But what about the present tense? I would venture to say that we often don’t utilize it because it is merely a verbalization of our current action. In other words, we live the present tense rather than talk about it.

However, if you’re like me, you get distracted. I can scan the pages of a book, and before I know it, my mind is elsewhere – thinking about something I did or I’m going to do. Sometimes my mind and my body are totally disconnected. I have to stop myself and refocus. Often times I do this verbally. “Come on Justin! Get your head in the game. Focus!”

My good friend Dr. Bill Smith, whom many know from New Hope Chapel, teaches and counsels people on issues regarding leadership to addictive behavior to sleep deprivation. A recent article of his called “The Sleep Game” caught my attention:

The word “pretend” is made up of two words, “tend” which means “to take care of”, and “pre” which means “ahead of time.” Your system (or sub-conscious mind) has no ability to differentiate between fantasy and reality. Pretending is done with the conscious mind. The subconscious believes and follows the conscious mind. So, the problem with thinking, “I am going to sleep” is the subconscious will follow that instruction literally. Instead of sleeping the subconscious will keep you awake so you can be in the state of “going”.

While all of us can relate to at least a few nights of restlessness, it isn’t the sleep part that caught my attention (though I will be sure to apply his methods if I have trouble sleeping). What caught my attention is how this brain activity relates to prayer.

Like the wife in the old Buick, we often merely think about our relationship with God. How do we think about it? We often think of it in the past – the awesome experience we had with God; or we think about it in the future – at some point we’ll reconnect with Him (even if it’s later today). But as long as we think about Him this way, we will perceive God to be somewhere along our timeline or spatial scope and never in our present moment. He will always be “I was” or “I will be” but rarely or never I AM.

What ends up happening is a cycle. You think about God in terms of past or future time and space; therefore, you perceive God to be distant from you. If you perceive God to be spatially distant from you, then you feel as if you don’t have a present relationship with Him. If you don’t have a present relationship with Him, then you feel you are failing as a Christian. If you feel you are failing as a Christian, then you think about God in more distant terms. Gradually, our conscious mind pushes God further and further away, and our subconscious mind follows along.

You know how to break the cycle of feeling distant from God? Be present with Him. On Sunday, Bill did a tremendously powerful yet simple prayer exercise with us during communion. Together we said, “Father, I am here. Father, I am listening.” When I said those words, something inside my brain started firing. My conscience told my subconscious that I am here in the presence of God, and that I am listening. My subconscious showed me God and alerted me to His speaking. Suddenly, my heart was at peace. I was present with God.

Remember, if we ever feel distant from God, it is not because He has moved away. God is always present with us. We don’t need to invite God into our presence; we need to invite ourselves into His – “Father, I am here.”

Let me invite you to do this right now. I want you to pray, but as you pray verbalize it in the present, avoiding past or future tense verbs. It might go something like this. “Father, I am here. I am listening to you. I am being clothed in Christ. You are making me new. I see you. I am experiencing your glory, your peace, your joy…”

Where is God?

Justin Hibbard

About ten years ago, I attended The Call D.C.  On the National Mall, among tens of thousands of Believers, we prayed for God to bring a revival.  As we prayed and cried out for God, I remember feeling so confused.  “How do I pray for revival?  How do I pray for God’s Spirit to come down and sweep through our Nation and the hearts of our lawmakers?  Where is God, and how to I convince Him to come here?”

These are not only questions we ask when we’re praying for revival; these are questions that float in our minds anytime we pray.  Throughout these Reflections on Intimacy with God, we’ve talked about how you picture God in your prayer life, but let’s talk about where you picture God.  This is extremely important.  When you’re praying, where is God?  Don’t give me the theological answer.  Give me what you’re sensing or seeing.  If you don’t know, close your eyes right now and pray, and as you pray, think about the location where you’re envisioning or sensing God.

For many people, God is distant.  He’s in heaven, looking down, listening to us.  Our prayers have to travel a long way.  In fact, I think sometimes we feel like we have to ask a little harder to give it that extra push to get it to God’s desk.  It’s sort of like that exclamation point we put on our emails to mark it “urgent.”

This even comes out in the way we talk, pray, or sing.  How about that Newsboys song – “As we lift up our hands, will you meet us here?  As we call on your Name, will you meet us here?”  So, lifting up our hands or calling on His Name might bring Him to where we are?  How high do we have to stretch, or how loud do we have to yell? Have you ever prayed, “God, we invite you here to this place?”

I grew up with the idea of the sanctuary.  It’s the place you go to in order to worship God.  Most people associate sanctuary with the church building where the worship service occurs.  Whenever I ran inside our church, an adult would stop me and say, “You’re in God’s house… the sanctuary.  There’s no running or horse playing in here.”  Were they right?  Was I running on hallowed ground, and was it God’s perpetual presence there in the sanctuary what made it holy?

Let me share with you a different idea (and no this isn’t an excuse to run inside the church building).  We are told on a number of occasions that our bodies are the Temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19; 2 Timothy 1:14).  In other words, God dwells within us.  As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago in a sermon on Yom Kippur, the Most Holy Place in the Tabernacle and later the Temple was the most haunted and sacred place in the world because God met with the High Priest on top of the Mercy Seat.  Following the crucifixion where the Temple Curtain tore from top to bottom, Paul tells us that God dwells inside the hearts of believers.  The profound implication of that verse is that you, as a believer filled with the Holy Ghost, are the most haunted and sacred place in the world because God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, dwells within you.

In a nutshell, God is here.  You don’t need to invite God into a place or a time of worship, as though it’s “now time to do something spiritual.”  The invitation is for you and for me.  God invites us – our entire being – not into just a spiritual experience but a spiritual life.  I wonder if all those times I said, “God, I invite you here,” has God replied, “actually, I’ve been here the whole time inviting you.”

Entering into the presence of God isn’t so much a place we go physically as it is mentally.  When we realize that we’re in the presence of God, something within us changes.  Paul tells us this in 2 Corinthians 3:18 – “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

Right now, you are in the amazing presence of God.  Say it.  “I am in the amazing presence of God.”  Don’t use the past tenses; don’t use the future tenses.  Don’t say, “Last week I had an amazing encounter with God,” or “At that place I met with God” or “This Sunday, I’m looking forward to meeting with God at church.”  Rather, right here, right now, you are with God, and God is within you.

One final thought as we close.  When Moses was first introduced to God at the burning bush, God told him His Name – I AM.  Right here, right now, you are with I AM.  The question is not: where is God?  The question is: where are you?

Praying with Expectations

Justin Hibbard

When I went to Colorado this past spring, I went with a lot of questions. “God, what do you want me to do? Am I supposed to quit my day job to focus on ministry at New Hope Chapel? And if I do, how can I make sure I have the money to support my family? Am I supposed to start my own business and do that along with ministry? What do you have for our church down the road?” I went to Colorado, hoping that God would answer those questions.

As I shared with you before, what I got was a very different answer. “Love me, Justin. Just love me.” The Lord didn’t answer the questions like I thought He would, but He did answer some deep needs burning in my soul.

How the Lord answered me and what He has been teaching me since has given me a lot of insight about praying with expectations. And that, friends, is where I want to begin in this series on intimacy with God.

What do you expect when you pray or when you worship? What do you think will happen? Do you have a picture in your mind about what’s going to happen when you turn your countenance towards God’s?

Maybe you feel like your prayers are sort of a shot-in-the-dark. Maybe it’s more like a Hail Mary (no pun intended). Maybe deep within your mind, if you were honest with yourself, you come to prayer like the skeptic – “I don’t think this will work, but it’s what I’m supposed to do.”

My advice to you is to expect nothing and to expect everything.

That might sound like a contradiction, so let me explain what I mean. First, when I say expect everything, I mean to say – expect that you are about to interact with the Almighty God, the Creator of the Heavens and Earth. You are about to address a God who spoke and worlds were formed. He has no limit of wealth, of intellect, of power, of time, of space, and most importantly of love.

Do you believe that? Is your prayer life a testimony of that? We say things like God speaks to people, but then sometimes we qualify that with, “well, at least He used to.” Christian, the Bible is not merely a history book; it is a testimony to the Person of God. He has not changed. It’s not like 2000 years after amazing stories of healing and freedom, we are addressing a God, who is rather tired, worn out, and who has used all of His miracle magic.

James tells us, “You do not have because you do not ask God” (James 4:3). In Matthew 13 and Mark 6, we read of Jesus not doing many miracles in His hometown because of their unbelief. The people didn’t realize who Jesus was. They thought they knew him – the little kid they watched grow up. Their unbelief centered around their limited understanding of the Person and Power of Jesus the Divine. Are we guilty of the same?

This is why I also say come to God with no expectations. By that, I mean limitations. Like Jesus’ hometown, we can easily put a box around what we think God will do. This has convicted me. I pray sometimes struggling to expect God to intervene. Sometimes, I try to picture what His intervening will look like. Either way, I’m focusing on the seemingly insurmountable problem or the image I’ve conjured up as to what God will do. Instead I ought to be focused on One thing… coming before the all-powerful Creator and King of the Universe. I’m trying to imagine God doing something before I’ve even begun to see Who He is.

As we begin this series on intimacy with God, we will begin with inviting God into our senses… or perhaps I should say inviting our senses into the presence of God. But before we get to that, let me leave you with this. Today, spend some time with the Lord. Turn the cell phones, the iPads, and the TV off. Get alone with God, and as you begin to pray, see yourself, get in the mindset, visualize, or sense yourself walking into the presence of the King of kings and Lord of lords. Focus and concentrate on you coming into and being in the very presence of God. I guarantee that beginning with this step will transform your prayer life.

Why They Walk Away

Justin Hibbard2 Comments

The other day, a coworker shared with me how her daughter has walked away from the faith. This woman is not alone. Many people walk away from the faith, and it seems to happen especially during college years. Certainly the college experience – peer pressure, social liberalism, and the classroom evangelist – contributes to the epidemic of children leaving Christianity. But the problem is much deeper than college.

We the church are great at teaching people how to act like Christians, but so often we don’t show people how to have a relationship with God. We emphasize things like church attendance, ministry, service (which are all good), but we don’t always model intimacy with Jesus Himself.

Perhaps we struggle with modeling it because we ourselves don’t know how to do it. Or we think that a spiritual relationship comes naturally. We talk about the importance of prayer, but has anyone showed you how to pray and meditate? We say things like, “Listen to what God is telling you,” but when’s the last time you heard teaching or attended a workshop on “how to hear and discern the voice of God.”

It’s much easier to teach people how to act like a Believer than how to be intimate with Jesus. But we must remember that acting like a Believer is not the same as being a Believer. This is one main reason why people walk away from the faith.

When the stage disappears, and suddenly an individual finds themselves without those externals that defined their Christian experience – their church, friends, youth group, adult leaders, they don’t know how to act. The Christianity that they’ve practiced is public, but there is no private intimacy with Jesus Himself. Young people aren’t the only ones at risk. Adults, especially pastors, have walked away for the same reason.

This is nothing new. This was an epidemic that plagued God’s people throughout their history. The Lord said, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Isaiah 29:13). Then some 700 years later, Jesus echoed the same words when referring to the Jewish leaders (Matthew 15:8).

Christian, there is something you need, like you need water. There is something you crave deep within your soul. It is intimacy with the Lord Jesus. And until we taste it, we never know quite what it is. But when we taste it, we know it is everything we’ve ever wanted, and nothing can be its substitute ever again. It is as the poet writes in Psalm 42, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?”

Jesus is the constant. Our life experiences may change. We may end up at different places with different churches and different peers. But the Holy Spirit never leaves us. He is the one constant, and if we have a relationship with Him, then our faith will not falter when the seasons of life change. A prayer relationship with Him must be what defines your Christian life, or I dare say that your Christianity is not really alive.

This is the message that the Lord has been laying heavily on my heart. There’s a need in the church today. The need isn’t how to behave better or how to be more involved in the church. The need is to teach the church how to have intimacy with Jesus. Over the next few months, these Reflections will focus on just that. I’ll be giving biblical and practical instruction on prayer and intimacy with Jesus, and I pray that this will be helpful in your own life.

But today let me leave you with this thought: your prayer life is your lifeblood. It is your umbilical cord. Jesus demonstrates how essential prayer was to His existence. How often we read of Him leaving the crowds to get alone with His Father. If Jesus – God Himself – could not neglect communion with the Father, then certainly, neither can we.