Presence

By Pastor Bob Rasmussen

Heavenly Father, we love you. We praise your Holy and powerful name. There is none greater than you. This morning, we gather to sing your praises and declare your word. Lord, we come again and ask for you healing power in the lives of your children. We lift up Drew again before you and plead the healing blood of Jesus. We pray for strength for the Lyle family Lord. In this moment we ask you to make a way for everyone involved. Your love, your grace, your mercy – we pray all this in Your Name. Jesus, anything is possible – for you are the God of possible. Amen

I’ve felt lately that I need to be more aware of the Holy Spirit in my life and to try to spend more time in the presence of God. We believe in Acts 2:38, all of it.

Acts 2:38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

The Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit – what a gift from God to His people. Being filled with the Spirit is not just speaking in tongues, is it? This relationship with the Holy Spirit is so valuable. It is one of the greatest gifts that Jesus has given us, amen? He did not just come for salvation, which would have been more than enough, but He did more.

John 14:16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. 18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. 20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

From that day in the Garden of Eden until the works of the cross, mankind was separated from God – because of sin. But because of the finished work of Jesus Christ, our relationship was restored, and we can walk with God in the garden again.

Because of the Holy Spirit He can talk to us, He can guide us, He can lead us. Now in the Old Testament, we did see the holy Spirit work in some people’s lives. But it came upon them, and then those individuals were able to do what God wanted them to do, at that time.

The Spirit came upon Saul to give him power but later left him when he became evil. The Holy Spirit left Saul after he sinned. The Holy Spirit left Samson and did not return until the end of his life. David prayed that the Holy Spirit would not be taken away from him. King David knew what happened to Saul and we can hear his fear of losing the Holy Spirit here:

Psalm 51:8 Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. 9 Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

But now, now it can be in us and stays with us – praise God, because of Jesus – amen. I am so grateful that we are alive during a time that we can have that Holy Spirit in us!

And I have to remind myself sometimes, it is not just a feeling. Whether I feel it or not – He is there, amen? Having the Holy ghost, alive, in us, gives us access to so much!

John 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

He has all of the wisdom and knowledge and counseling that we need in this life. And the Lord knows – – – I need a lot of counseling, amen? He is there to be our advocate and ally.

Psalm 54:4 Behold, God is my helper and ally; The Lord is the sustainer of my soul [my upholder].

Psalm 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

And the significance of the Holy Spirit in us is that the Holy Ghost, it is what will change this world for the better, His will – working through us – for His Kingdom. By letting the Holy Spirit work in our lives, that is what will impact people’s lives.

And while I do love the goose bumps and the sweet feeling I get when I really feel His Prescence, the Holy Spirit is here for more than that. His Spirit is also giving every one of us purpose and the ability to keep moving forward for the Kingdom.

John 7:37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. 38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

That living water is the Holy Spirit. So out of our bellies flow rivers of living water, the Holy Spirit. In this world and this day and age, it seems that we have so much stuff flowing – to us. Like rivers of Amazon packages. Subscriptions for refill orders. Rivers of social media – Facebook, TikTok, Insta, Snapchat, whatever else is out there, it’s like a tidal wave of technology. In our case, there are a lot of cooking shows, not going to lie. Rivers of bad media coverage, depending on who you like and what you believe. Rivers of truly horrible theology that pervert the Word of God to make certain lifestyles the new normal. And so, I think that we need to be vigilant, to be aware of God’s presence and seek it as much as we can. That we choose to be as close as we can in this very dark world.

Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. 23 But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! 24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

It’s not just money we need to be concerned about, it is whatever will pull us away and distract us from being in the presence of God, amen? And the world we live in there are so many distractions these days.

I work in technology, I work on the infrastructure that gets information and data to end users – that is what we in my field call them – end users. And that is the truth – we use whatever is being piped on the information highway, for better or for worse. But no matter how you use it, it is coming faster and faster because technology is getting better and better. AI still has a way to go, but it’s growing as Pastor Jeff shared. With Trump and Musk building “huge, beautiful, like you never seen before in this country, beautiful data centers!”. 500 billion dollars and 20 data centers, it’s called Stargate and it is a big deal.And because of all this, it can be distracting.

That’s actually in a verse in a song that we sing here, called “God Revive Us”. “We′re so distracted these days. Everywhere we turn, we’re entertained, What if we put down our phones? Took time to pray, stop throwing stones.”

What, put my phone down? What, I like it, I want to see whatever is happening, or whoever is doing something . I can’t miss anything! I need followers, I personally do not care about that, but people, they need the attention. Whatever the reason, they want a platform.That is why I, and I think all of us need to make an effort to make intentional moments to spend time with God, and put him, Jesus, on the highest platform. Away from the minutia and all of the noise.

Posting a single scripture, reading a 12 second devotional – is that worthy of the one who saved your life? I woke up this morning, should I not give Him praise and spend time with Him? If I literally got what I deserved I would have been dead a loooonng time ago.

Matthew 6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. 7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking

Do I go into a closet and pray, no, I do not. Because if you have seen our house, there is absolutely NO room in our closets. Diana is a seller on Poshmark and Mecari, so that is not an option. Anyway, that word closet. I looked up that Greek word and some translations call it a room, specifically “tameion” in the Greek language, and that means room, inner room, or storeroom. And the storeroom, the storeroom is where treasures were kept. That is why I think that the storeroom – is our heart.

In our heart is where we store the things that we love, in our hearts are the things that we adore, in our hearts are the things that we protect. I think it is all about our heart, our heart for God. Taking that time to be as focused on Jesus as much as we can. And taking that time where we pray and we take time to listen. And maybe spend more time reading His Word.

Psalm 119:11 Your word I have treasured and stored in my heart, That I may not sin against You. 12 Blessed and reverently praised are You, O Lord; Teach me Your statutes.

His Word, our treasure, stored in our heart. Fueling the Holy Spirit, helping us navigate this life so that we can do it within His will, amen? And one of the greatest things about the Holy Spirit is you don’t have to have a master’s in theology, you don’t need to be rich, you can be young, you can be old. You can live anywhere on this planet that is now filled with 8,231, 613,070 people. It is a promise for everyone that will receive it.

And if we have the Holy Spirit, we have a river of life flowing out of us. Wherever we go, we have the power and potential to release life. To release the Spirit of life, to release the power of God. That Spirit that is in us is the same that Jesus had, and that is resurrection power, and it can flow from us

But so many times, we can be like, eh, I am just average, I am a nobody. Stop it!

You are a child of God
You are the salt of this world
You are light in this world for Jesus.
You are the body of Christ
You have access to the river of Life from Jesus

It is about the Word of God and what it says and not what I or you feel. I get it. There are times that I am depressed, there are times that I am hopeless, that I feel I am stuck. But what I need to do is remind myself of what is in me is the very thing, that river of life, that can change the circumstances I am in, that can move what needs to be moved, so that God’s will can be done. And we are not going to run out, because we are not the true source of that living water.

The connection of that Spirit in us is not connected to a physical source, it is connected to the greatest source in the world, Jesus Christ. And because of that, it will never, ever, run dry. He will not fail. I may feel dry, Things may look dry, But the river inside of us will never run dry.

And that is the thing that I have been trying to focus on in my own life. That sometimes we, meaning me as well, do not release what God has put in us. It is not that the river has run dry, it is that we have closed off the flow, We shut it off in our hearts. Sometimes I may wander away from the Word or prayer. I may say to myself, well maybe tomorrow – it’s been a hard week. I am just too tired to spend time focused in that secret place, in His presence.

And then I find myself not speaking in tongues as much as I used to, and that is a gift from God. Some churches don’t believe in it, they say that was for then. I believe, more than anytime in my life, that speaking in tongues is not just a gift, it is a weapon. A weapon to pray in a heavenly language for speaking the will of God. Speaking in that gift from God, in that heavenly language is how I can get things flowing again.

Speaking in tongues can release life. Speaking in our heavenly language we can release the power of God. There are battles that are being fought that are spiritual – it’s not just about me and what I see. It’s about Christ, and Jesus sees it all.

Another way we can open the flow is to go and lay hands on people and believe for their healing. This morning I am believing in that through faith for Drew.

Mark 16:17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; 18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

As followers of Christ, we know that this side of life is not the end. We know that the life we live now, will be forever when Jesus returns. We know that, spoiler alert – that we get to live forever with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Our God is our healer through eternity.

Revelation 21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

But until that time, we need to pray for those that are still here. Those that do need a touch from God, and that will come from that flow of the Spirit that lives in us. So we lay hands on the sick, pray for them in faith and spirit. And “they shall recover”.

How about when things are bad at home, when we have family issues. Maybe I said something like “my wife is high maintenance…..” We shut it off, at least I have in the past. We speak to the circumstances, we speak to the fear, to the unknown. We speak to the pain in the relationships. We come into agreement with what is going on and the flow stops, our heart closes.

But we can change that by getting into the presence of God. Intentionally! No matter where we are at. We can pray for God to move in our situation. We can cast out the enemy that is trying to destroy our families and relationships. We can speak in His name and In my name shall they cast out devils.

Joshua 24: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Speak that word over your home and your family. Turn on some praise music, and worship Jesus. Quote the Word of in whatever situation that you are facing. Use what is hidden in your heart. If you don’t remember, the same technology that tries to get all your attention can find that scripture for you!

But when we stop, when we consciously decide to stop – we shut the flow of the Spirit. It’s not because we ran out of life. It’s not because we ran out of water. It’s not because the river dried up. It’s because we stopped letting the flow out, letting the spirit move, it’s a choice.

And if you don’t know how to release the river of life in some situation, there’s an answer for that. pray to God for the wisdom on what to do, pray to God for His will in the situation, pray to God for the next step. It more than speaking in tongues, some gifts of the Spirit are wisdom and knowledge amen? You may not know what to do next, but I know someone who does, and His name is Jesus. And however He answers, those answers will be full of life, wisdom, and knowledge. They will bring about the change that God wants. The same Spirit that created the very earth we live on, the waters, everything, lives in us.

1 Corinthians 6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

We are the temple of the Holy Spirit in this world. So many reject Jesus. So many believe in the wrong thing. There are some that are being taught incorrectly. There is so much to be done for His kingdom. Releasing the word of God, our prayers to God, speaking in tongues and worshipping our God, to bring life and rescue to the lost.

Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

I’ve got a river of life flowing out of me. I want to take His Spirit wherever I can. Wherever we go, wherever there needs to be new life, we can flood it with the waters of the spirit, and there will be healing, both physical and spiritual. There will be restoration. There will be life, changing the dead things into life.

Or – we can choose to close the doors of our heart. What will you choose? Being filled with the Holy Spirit is important as we see Paul questioning some believers.

Acts 19:2 He said unto them, Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed? And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.

That is why I am talking about this, some people may not know.

3 And he said unto them, Unto what then were ye baptized? And they said, Unto John’s baptism. 4 Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.

That is why we baptize in the name of Jesus, there is no other name that saves other than Jesus

5 When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied.

The altar is open, let it flow.