Pressing into His Presence

A Passion for His Presence

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Shelley Quinn

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Series Code: PHP

Program Code: PHP000001


00:01 Welcome to Pressing in to His Presence.
00:02 Please, join us today to learn
00:04 how you can develop a passion for God's presence.
00:29 Welcome to Pressing in to His Presence.
00:32 Today, we are going to lay the ground work for this series
00:36 which is based on a book that I was very privileged
00:40 to write also titled Pressing in to His Presence.
00:45 Today, were going to be starting with chapter one
00:48 and this series is a series dedicated to prayer.
00:53 But we will start with my personal testimony
00:56 as to how I developed a passion for God's presence.
01:02 You know, for most of my adult life.
01:04 I lived in out of the way rural areas
01:06 and this is required driving
01:09 long desolate stretches of highway
01:12 to reach cities of any significant population.
01:15 Still any inconvenience of time consuming travel
01:19 has been offset by treasure times of talking with God
01:23 in one of my favorite prayer classes, my car.
01:28 In Matthew 6:6 Jesus said enter into that closet
01:32 and when you have shut the door and prayer to your father.
01:36 Perhaps He wasn't thinking of driving 70 miles an hour
01:40 down the highway while praying and I'm sure that
01:43 He would recommend total absorption in prayer
01:46 if you're surrounded by heavy traffic.
01:49 But my only traffic concerns were avoiding
01:51 the occasional tumble weed or an absent minded jackrabbit
01:55 that happen to amble across the path
01:58 of my prayer closet on wheels.
02:01 I will never forget an evening in 1996
02:05 when I headed west from our farm in Coleman, Texas
02:08 to visit my sister in New Mexico.
02:10 Slinging my suitcase into the back of the car
02:13 I pop down in the driver seat and pull the door close
02:17 shutting the world and all distractions
02:20 and in eager anticipation
02:22 of the seven hour trip before me
02:24 I prayed and headed down the road.
02:27 No radio or CD's for me.
02:30 With precious little time to myself
02:32 driving miles of near empty desolate highways
02:37 was something to be treasured.
02:39 I enjoyed the undisturbed silence
02:42 which served as an incubator for my inner thoughts.
02:46 The roads at night were lighted by a full moon
02:48 and only an occasional set of oncoming headlights
02:51 interrupted the serenity of the landscape.
02:54 Ahead was another travel adventure of hundreds of miles
02:57 over the most desolate highways imaginable
03:00 with only my favorite companion, the Lord.
03:04 Little did I know what God had in store for me.
03:07 Now, I'm about to share a story with you
03:10 that is more than a little unusual
03:13 and opening my heart like this is risky business.
03:16 I chance being misunderstood and even labeled strange.
03:21 Let me emphasize something first.
03:24 It was a one time occurrence in my life
03:27 and this particular experience is not
03:30 what the teaching of this series on prayer is about
03:34 it is however related in an exotic kind of way.
03:37 So I'll risk tell you but first let me ask you a question.
03:44 Have you ever prayed for over six hours
03:47 without distraction or interruption?
03:50 It has been my privilege
03:52 only once on that moon lit night in 1996.
03:56 It was an extraordinary event
03:59 that began with me praying Psalms 27:7-9.
04:05 "Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice!
04:08 Have mercy also upon me, and answer me.
04:12 When you said 'Seek My face,' my heart said to You,
04:16 'Your face, Lord, I will seek.'
04:19 Do not hide your face far from me,
04:21 do not turn your servant away in anger,
04:24 You have been my help, do not leave me nor forsake me,
04:29 O God of my salvation."
04:33 I wasn't merely quoting scripture,
04:36 rather this was a sincere heart cry for weeks
04:40 I had had constant distractions
04:44 and they had eclipsed my time of worship with the Lord.
04:47 A deep sense of lost now overshadowed and overwhelmed me
04:53 and I mourned the lack of intimate fellowship
04:56 with the lover of my soul.
04:59 As I began thanking God for His countless blessings
05:03 praise for His goodness and mercy weld in my heart
05:08 and flowed from my lips.
05:10 I pleaded for forgiveness confessing the many ways
05:13 in which I had failed Him and soon
05:15 I was praying scripture promises
05:18 returning God's word to Him with thanksgiving
05:22 and I was absolutely persuade it that He had the power
05:26 to perform what He had promised.
05:28 It was as if I was inhaling relief
05:33 and exhaling every negative feeling that numbed my joy.
05:38 That night I strived to worship earnestly in truth
05:43 and in spirit longing to draw near to him,
05:46 to press into his presence.
05:49 He was definitely drawing near to me
05:52 just as He promised in James 4:8
05:54 which says "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you."
06:01 Those frequently traveled roads were so absolutely familiar
06:07 that this journey required no concentration on directions
06:11 and that freed me to become completely immersed
06:15 in worship of my Lord and Savior.
06:18 Six hours of seeking His face were swiftly absorbed
06:23 into the sponge like trough of this bliss
06:26 and then a familiar landmark appeared announcing
06:29 that I only had 45 minutes remaining to my destination
06:32 and I cried out oh, Lord,
06:34 I'm not ready to stop worshiping You.
06:38 I've never before sensed Your presence as which I like.
06:43 It's true Father, as Psalms 16:11 says,
06:46 "In Your presence is fullness of joy
06:49 and at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore."
06:52 And I said oh, Lord,
06:54 I love you with all of my heart, soul
06:57 and mind caused me to love you with all of my strength
07:01 and I prayed David's words of prayer in Psalms 42:1
07:07 which says "As the deer pants for the water brooks,
07:12 so my soul pants for you, O God."
07:18 What happened next is indescribable.
07:21 It was in Acts 2 upper room type of experience.
07:27 Not with the mighty rushing winds or tons of fire
07:31 but certainly with an outpouring of His spirit.
07:34 Suddenly, unexpectedly
07:37 joy cascaded over me in wave after wave
07:42 and words are insufficient to describe it.
07:45 I sensed that God was communicating with me
07:48 but not in any language it was deep calling into deep,
07:53 His heart calling into my heart,
07:56 His spirit calling to my spirit.
07:58 He flooded with His love.
08:01 It reminded me of Psalms 42:7-8
08:05 where David wrote "Deep calls unto deep
08:08 at the noise of Your waterfalls,
08:10 all Your waves and billows have gone over me.
08:13 The Lord will command
08:15 His loving-kindness in the daytime,
08:17 and in the night His song shall be with me,
08:20 a prayer to the God of my life."
08:24 You know, if there is one thing
08:27 that Bible commentators agree on
08:29 it is that King David was pouring
08:31 emotions of devastation as he penned Psalm 42.
08:36 Cut off from worshiping in the sanctuary
08:39 David was distressed with holy zeal for God.
08:43 He so thirsted for living water from the living Lord.
08:47 Most commentators believe that David refers
08:50 to the overwhelming afflictions of his soul
08:53 as being God's waves and billows cascading over him.
08:57 Now, I'm not a theologian
08:59 and I don't presume to correct Bible commentators.
09:03 Still after my experience of pressing into His presence
09:06 that night I can't help but look at Psalm 42
09:10 through a different lens.
09:12 David had first written these words in Psalm 42:5.
09:18 "Why are you in despair, O my soul?
09:21 And why are you become disturbed within me?
09:25 Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him
09:28 for the help of His presence."
09:32 Is it possible that in the midst the angst
09:35 that David expressed that he pressed into God's presence
09:41 and experienced the same unique visitation I had?
09:44 Is that why he was able to rise
09:47 so rapidly from the debts of disband
09:49 and seek to the heights of faith and confidence.
09:53 You know, in Revelation 14:2 the apostle John wrote,
09:56 "I heard a voice from heaven, like the voice of many waters."
10:01 When David referred to the noise of God's waterfall
10:06 was he describing God's presence pouring out over him
10:10 in powerful wordless communication,
10:14 deep calling into deep like the roar of the waterfalls
10:18 the voice of many waters.
10:21 Could that explain why he also penned in Psalm 42:8
10:27 "The Lord will command
10:28 His loving-kindness in the daytime,
10:31 and in the night His song shall be with me
10:34 a prayer to the God of my life."
10:37 And why he concluded with these words in verse 11,
10:41 "Why are you cast down, O my soul?
10:44 And why are you disquieted within me?
10:47 Hope in God for I shall yet praise Him,
10:50 the help of my countenance."
10:54 You know, I don't mean to take poetic license
10:58 or to try to rewrite Bible commentary.
11:01 This is simply something that causes to wonder
11:04 and since it's not a doctrinal matter
11:07 I trusted its okay to share my musings
11:09 about David's experience and relation to my own.
11:13 Sadly, my encounter
11:15 was a one time occurrence in my life.
11:17 Never since have I communed with God for six hours
11:21 in such earnest uninterrupted prayer.
11:24 Oh, yes, I've attended all night prayer vigils
11:27 where we prayed around the clock,
11:29 still these were times of seeking God's hand
11:33 to move in specific answers to prayers.
11:36 Not an uninterrupted season, a sincerity seeking His faith.
11:40 I tried myself sometimes for being
11:43 spiritually lazy and apathetic.
11:46 Why haven't I tried
11:48 to repeat the unique events of that evening?
11:51 Well, first I'm afraid it wouldn't happen again
11:54 if I were to seek "the experience."
11:58 Besides if we go to God with the expectation
12:02 of some type of phenomenal experience
12:05 we are seeking Him for the wrong reason
12:09 and we become in danger of receiving
12:12 a psychologically educed result.
12:15 So I will settle for this perhaps
12:18 once in a lifetime event.
12:21 You may doubt what I have just shared
12:24 attributing the event to emotionalism, that's okay.
12:29 I confess that hearing such a story from someone else
12:32 would really leave me skeptical.
12:35 My defense is simply that
12:36 I'm not an overly emotional person
12:40 and I not a sensationalist.
12:43 This story was not shared tout
12:45 the tail of some mountain top experience
12:48 but merely to illustrate the power of heart felt prayer.
12:54 You see, prayer is like a multifaceted diamond
12:59 and the benefits of prayer are like multifaceted.
13:04 Our practice of prayer needs a little polishing
13:08 to realize its brilliance.
13:10 We too often regard the purpose of prayer
13:14 as the matter of simply laying our request before God
13:18 oh, but they are so much more.
13:20 The underlying purpose of prayer
13:23 is to know God on a more intimate level
13:27 by communicating with Him on a more intimate level.
13:32 So, how do we develop a passion for God's presence?
13:36 Let's look at Jeremiah 29
13:39 and we are going to begin with verse 11.
13:42 Here God says "'For I know the plans I have for you,'
13:47 declares the Lord,
13:48 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you,
13:51 plans to give you hope and a future.
13:54 Then'" notice first He says I've got these plan for you
13:59 "'then you will call on me and come and pray to me,
14:03 and I will listen to you.
14:04 You will seek me and find me
14:07 when you seek me with all your heart.
14:10 I will be found by you,' declares the Lord,
14:13 'and will bring you back from captivity.'"
14:18 Did you notice that I added emphases to the word then?
14:24 "Then you will call on me and come and pray to me."
14:27 The question is when?
14:29 When do we call upon God
14:31 seeking Him with all of our heart?
14:34 When we recognize
14:36 that He has a good plan for our lives
14:39 then we become motivated
14:41 to seek Him with all of our heart.
14:44 God does have a plan for our lives
14:47 and it is better than the one we are living.
14:50 We find it in His holy word and when we discover His plan,
14:55 acknowledge His sovereignty and power and understand that
15:00 He performs on behalf of our eternal benefit.
15:04 Our hearts well up with eager expectation.
15:08 We develop an incredible desire
15:10 to spend time in the council of His will,
15:14 the Bible and we exhort increased effort
15:18 to whole hearted communication with the lover of our souls.
15:23 In other words, we develop a passion for His presence.
15:28 A greater understanding of God's plan for our lives
15:32 naturally progresses to a passion for His presence.
15:36 The closer we draw to Him the more we become like Christ
15:41 and the more Christ like we become the more
15:44 we develop an increased sensitivity to His moment
15:48 by moment presence with us.
15:51 He is always with us. He never leaves us.
15:53 He never forsakes us.
15:55 And if we are not experiencing His presence
15:58 it is due to our indifference.
16:02 Spiritual indifference is a dangerous heart condition.
16:08 You know, King David had a passion for God's presence
16:12 and that passion caused to seek God earnestly
16:16 and in return God saw David.
16:19 He saw him to be king
16:21 calling him a man after his own heart.
16:24 In his prayer journal which is what I call the Psalms,
16:28 this is David's prayer journal.
16:30 He is refereeing to himself in these words
16:33 found in Psalms 21:6 and he says,
16:37 "For you have made him, David most blessed forever.
16:43 You have made him exceedingly glad with Your presence."
16:47 You know, we can look to the Old Testament
16:49 and realize that David spiritual love
16:51 had its ebbs and flows.
16:54 Still his desire for God's presence always returned
16:58 as consuming waves of passion.
17:01 In the wilderness of Judah
17:03 David wrote these words recorded in Psalm 63:1-4.
17:09 "O God, You are my God, earnestly I seek You,
17:14 my soul thirsts for You, my body longs for you,
17:18 in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
17:22 I have seen You in the sanctuary
17:24 and beheld Your power and glory.
17:27 Because Your love is better than life,
17:31 my lips will glorify You.
17:33 I will praise You as long as I live,
17:36 and in Your name I will lift up my hands."
17:42 Do you desire to be like David,
17:45 to be God's loving child seeking Him earnestly
17:50 a person after his own heart?
17:53 To experience the reward God has
17:56 for those who earnestly seek Him?
17:58 Oh, I do.
18:00 Unfortunately as with David's occasional omission
18:04 I look back over my life
18:06 and recognize the occasional times,
18:09 I should say the many times that I have experienced
18:12 the loss of my passion for His presence
18:15 and I wonder how could it happen.
18:18 Have you ever lost the rhythm of your relationship with God?
18:22 Have you ever just awakened one morning and wondered
18:25 what happened to your zeal for prayer and Bible study?
18:29 The cares of this world can be like crashing waves
18:32 that was the best of our intentions out to see.
18:36 I can't fully explain these cyclic rises
18:39 and falls in my spinning earth life.
18:42 Why do I occasionally no,
18:45 even a number of times turn my face from Him.
18:48 Oh, I believe that I'm still headed in His direction
18:52 and that I remain His child.
18:54 But it hurts me to disappoint my loving Father
18:58 but praise God these reversals are short lived.
19:02 My passion for God's presence always returns again
19:06 like a surging tidal wave washing over me.
19:10 Let's fast forward it to three years.
19:13 We're going to fast forward to September 1999.
19:17 Then for the previous 18 months
19:19 I had traveled the United States
19:20 working 12 hour days, six to seven days a week
19:25 with a start up company in Houston, Texas.
19:27 And my demanding travel schedule made it impossible
19:30 to attend my Sunday keeping church.
19:33 And I've reasoned well,
19:34 this is a special career opportunity
19:37 and I promised God it wouldn't--
19:39 it would only be for a limited time
19:41 that I percept the assembling of the saints.
19:44 I had also abandoned the practice of speaking
19:48 and praying God's promises back to Him.
19:52 But I beautifully read a chapter of the Bible
19:56 each night hoping that that would suffice.
20:00 Lots of scripture was hidden in my heart
20:03 but I felt secure still unwittingly
20:08 I had unplugged from my power source.
20:11 I was operating spiritual battery power as my standby
20:16 and I failed to notice how badly I needed a recharge.
20:20 Over those 18 months
20:22 my prayer life had gradually diminished
20:25 to several minutes here and there during the day
20:28 and the obligatory prayer that kneels in bedtime,
20:32 you know what I mean, those little prayers
20:34 that are often just have for our conscious.
20:38 The scripture that I had hidden in my heart was playing out
20:41 and God's promises no longer sparked
20:44 my thoughts without effort.
20:46 I have been unplugged too long
20:49 and my spiritual current was rapidly just charging.
20:53 I lamented my lost intimacy with the Lord
20:57 and I'm embarrassed to admit it
20:58 but my prayers became increasingly winy
21:02 as I begged God to change me
21:06 and to do something in me while all the while
21:12 I made no sincere effort to change my own behavior.
21:16 You know, Jesus said in Matthew 6:33,
21:20 "Seek first the kingdom of God in his righteousness,
21:24 and all these things shall be added to you."
21:29 That I was following His counsel.
21:31 Once again faulty reasoning
21:34 had caused to assign higher priority to my job
21:38 than to seeking God's kingdom first.
21:41 I thought I had a good excuse.
21:43 My husband JD had joined me 12 months earlier
21:46 in becoming employed by the same start up company
21:49 that demanded such personal sacrifice.
21:52 And like a NASA shuttle their success had skyrocketed
21:58 then the unthinkable happened, they filed for bankruptcy
22:02 owing us a good deal of money on our expense accounts
22:05 that we knew we could never collect.
22:08 JD took temporary employment in the panhandle of Texas
22:12 while I scrambled to take advantage
22:14 of a business opportunity of our own.
22:16 And to meet the mid January
22:18 launch deadline of our new company
22:20 here I was again working 12 to 14 hours a day from home
22:24 developing business building seminars for clients of CPAs.
22:29 So giving God empty promises my days were consumed with work
22:34 and my nights with pouty prayers.
22:37 I had lost my sense of peace when I forfeited
22:42 the favor of intimate fellowship with Him.
22:45 I knew my spiritual apathy grieved God.
22:49 Then I remembered
22:50 how Moses had pled for the Lord's presence
22:53 when he had prayed for God to grant to him
22:57 and the airing children of Israel
23:00 the return of His presence to accompany them
23:03 as they made their way to the promise land.
23:06 And our God of infinite love replied in Exodus 33:14,
23:12 "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."
23:19 That's what I needed.
23:21 I needed His presence and His rest.
23:25 Walking outside into the crisp night air
23:28 I gazed at His celestial glory.
23:31 The spectacle of His thy host blurred
23:34 as hot stinging tears bring my eyes
23:37 and I prayed, oh, Father,
23:39 please forgive me forsaking my first love.
23:44 That was all I've said
23:46 but it was not all that the Lord heard.
23:48 When troubled eyes are turned toward heaven
23:52 the tender trickle of tears
23:54 is heard by our loving Father as prayers.
23:57 Psalms 9:12 tell us
23:59 "He does not forget the cry of the humble."
24:06 Misplaced priorities and negligence of prayer
24:10 testified to a life
24:13 that was not fully surrendered to the Lord.
24:16 I was humbled, it was time for a change
24:20 and change was in the wind.
24:23 My passion for His presence surged.
24:28 We're out of time today but I hope that
24:32 you will join us next time for the rest of the story
24:37 to see how the Lord moved
24:39 to eradicate my spiritual apathy.
24:43 You know, I have to tell you
24:45 its a bit embarrassing to be talking about myself
24:50 but without sharing this with you--
24:53 I'm not doing it to-- well, it's embarrassing.
24:58 I'm not doing it for my benefit.
25:00 I'm sharing this with you
25:02 so that you can see how God works.
25:06 I know that at least this is how He worked in my life
25:10 and He did such an amazing job, He changed my life totally.
25:15 When He taught me how to press into His presence
25:19 its something that I just cannot tell you
25:24 how much today's church the Laodicean Church
25:29 needs to change their prayer life.
25:33 If we have a vital prayer life we will be on fire for God
25:40 and we will be following
25:41 in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.
25:44 It is something else to know that really
25:48 we are all in the same--
25:50 we're all in the same condition.
25:52 We all need more of God. We need to know Him.
25:57 Jesus said in John 17:3,
26:00 this is eternal life to know the one and only God
26:05 and the one whom He sent Jesus Christ.
26:08 Let me say a prayer for you right now
26:10 and please, join us next time.
26:14 Father, we come in the name of Jesus
26:17 and oh, Lord, how we praise you Father, for who You are.
26:23 We praise You Father, for Your love.
26:26 We praise You for the gifts of Your Son Jesus Christ
26:31 and we praise You Father, for the gifts
26:33 of Your Holy Spirit and Your word.
26:35 And Father, I pray in the name of Jesus
26:38 that You will forgive us for not being--
26:45 Lord, more humble.
26:46 For not recognizing that Your plan
26:48 is to be totally depended upon You.
26:51 We come now in the name of Jesus asking that
26:54 You would change our prayer life, Father.
26:56 Change us, O God.
26:58 And we thank You in advance Lord,
27:01 for the answer to the prayer of faith.
27:03 In Jesus name, amen.
27:06 Well, next time we'll be talking about
27:10 how God eradicated this terrible problem in my life
27:16 and I think you're going to enjoy it.
27:18 You know, this is an exciting teaching
27:20 I was-- I always thank God that
27:23 when He teaches me something I want to ask Him first
27:28 show me how You got me from point A to point B
27:32 so that I can find my way back.
27:35 I like to share what God has shared with me
27:38 but I also want to record it so that we can have a way,
27:44 markers if you will for me to find my way back.
27:49 Spiritual apathy is really a dangerous heart condition
27:54 but it is one that if we turn to God He will eradicated
27:58 and that's what we will be talking about next time.
28:01 Our prayer for you today
28:03 is that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
28:05 the love of the Father and the fellowship
28:07 of the Holy Spirit is with you always.


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Revised 2014-12-17