#159 The Presence Centered Life (11 - Being Continually Filled)

You know, I think one of the greatest affronts to the work of God in our life personally and in our church is our lack of dependence on the Spirit's power. You know, I think that we have for so long got the best we can possibly do, and it's not working. Music. And when God never intended for us not to be tethered to His power. Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening. The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.

Hey, well, welcome to the One Cry Podcast. I'm Kyle Reno with my partner in crime, Bill Eliff, on the other side. How you doing, buddy? Hey, man. Hey, man. Good to see you. Yeah. Well, listen, we are honored that you'd give us some moments to really share with you what we believe in God's heart for personal revival, believing for revival and awakening in our nation and our gods at work in powerful ways.

But we believe there's so much more in store. And so just to catch you up, one, I would encourage you, please go the whole journey with us in the podcast. Like there's things that are coming toward the end that you'll need to hear the connect the dots and a lot of things that you're about to hear at the beginning. And as always, there's more resources for you at OneCry.com.

And even in the show notes, there's more things based off of each episode that you can continue to learn from even beyond these episodes.

But today, Bill, today, you're going to keep walking us into these truths that God's really birthed in your heart around the presence-centered life. And you've, man, God's used you, bro, to really help us see, even in the last couple episodes, from drawing near, I mean, to cleansing moments, like non-negotiables, to be people that are positioned for His presence. And today, you're going to talk about what it means to be filled,

right? And listen, we've got some Baptist background here, me and you. We know what it's like to be full, right? We know what it's like to pull up at the banquet table and eat too much and indulge too much. But there's more that God wants for each one of us as personally and as a people.

So walk us into it. Absolutely. So we're going to look at this issue of filling. As we, just to remind us of where we are, I want to mention this primary statement, and if you're watching by video, you can see this on the screen here behind me. But we made this foundational statement, and that is that God desires an unbroken daily personal relationship with us, but we've got to cooperate. And in this statement, His presence is what we most need, and our presence is what He most desires.

Now, we saw earlier in the previous broadcast, God has His ways and His ways to invite us into His presence. I just want to just look at this chart is that, first of all, God, part of his way of inviting us into his presence is how he created us. So he's he's creating us in his image so we could talk to him and walk with him. He made us with eyes and ears. He created this incredible place in the garden. We rebelled against that and and and walked away, which we have been doing ever

since. sense, but his creating indicates his desire for us to be in his presence. And then beyond that, look at this next little truth. And that is he constantly in the Old Testament and beyond is calling us. I mean, God is a speaking God. And so he came, even though we rebelled against him, you look at the Israelites, I mean, over and over again, they were doing the most horrific things in light of the mercy of God, but he kept calling and he kept sending prophets and voices and men and women

to communicate and say, come back to me, return to me. And here's how to do that. Not only was he calling, but he was what I would call discipling. In other words, he walked with men like Noah and Abraham and Moses and Elijah and Elisha. And he helped these men be men who lived in the presence of God. And then when we looked at them, we saw what that was like. I mean, we all need that discipleship. That's how the kingdom is multiplied.

And it's fascinating to me that right in the middle of the Bible, he took one of the most. Perfect examples of this, a man named David, a man after his own heart. And David gave us the Psalms. Well, God gave us the Psalms. But the Psalms are the expressions of a presence-centered man. And Jerusalem was a picture of a presence-centered city. I believe it's Psalm 48 that says God has made himself known in Jerusalem. Jerusalem and she's lifted up and she's become the joy of the whole earth.

Why is that? Because the presence of God was there. And God was trying to say to us, look, if you would just walk with me, if you would just stay in my presence, this is what the presence of God brings. And his presence his fullness of joy. If that were not enough, we see this next movement of God bringing us into his presence, and that is that he dwelt with us. He came and dwelt with us. The word of God became flesh and dwelt with us, and we beheld his glory.

We could touch, we could see, we could hear God and his presence. I mean, there's a greatest manifestation we've ever seen of the presence of God was in the person of Jesus Christ. And so we just saw it. Nobody can say, well, I don't know what God and his presence are like, like because we see what it was like to be in the presence of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

And then when Jesus had finished his work, providing a way through the cross and the resurrection for us to come into his presence by taking care of our sin problem, he said, now I'm going away. And the disciples just, well, they were really afraid. And he said, don't be afraid. I'm not going to leave you like an orphan. I'm going to send the Holy Spirit. And here's the next level of the presence of God who will indwell you. He will be with you and he will be in you.

So you can experience the presence of God 24-7 all the time. I mean, this is absolutely incredible. And if that were not enough, he said to his disciples that day in John 14, he said, and listen, don't be afraid. Afraid, I'm going to prepare a place for you that where I am, there you may be also. And I'll come again and receive you to myself. So he's coming. Amen. I mean, he's just coming back to take us to a place where there'll be absolutely no interruption.

I mean, when we see the activity of God, the ways of God in drawing us in and pursuing us into his presence. It just overwhelms us. It just makes us understand how much he loves us. But here's the question. We said in the beginning, God desires this unbroken relationship with us for us to be in his presence, but we must us cooperate. How do we cooperate? And just like God has his ways, men have their ways, right?

And we've been seeing the last few weeks, the ways of a presence-centered man or woman. If you say, I want to be a person, is it possible to live in the presence of God all the time? Well, apparently God says, pray without ceasing, right? Pray with no interruption. Talk to me constantly. Be in my presence. He invites us there. We can live in his presence. He says in Colossians 3, set your mind on the things above where Christ is seated

at the right hand of God. God, fix your minds there because you've died to a life that can't do that. And your life is now hidden with Christ in God. So we can experience this all the time, but we've got to cooperate. So what has to happen is we need to develop those ways of experiencing the presence of God. Now, we fumble and mumble at this. At first, we feel like the world is attractive, and so we wander away from His presence and chase the world and look at other gods.

We talked about that, and it's always just a disaster when we do that. But as we grow and mature and get more and more hungry for Him, ways begin to develop in us. And we saw three of those the last three weeks. And these are just essential, non-negotiable ways of a presence-centered man. First of all, we learn how to draw near, right? I mean, God said, draw near to me and I will draw near to you. Because the problem is we wander and we've got to come back. Draw near.

And then as we draw near, one of the ways of a presence-centered man is he learns to commune. Through the word of God and the spirit of God and prayer, we learn how to commune with God. And we learn that the Bible is not some static dead book that we just read to try to get some information. Jesus is on every page. He's talking. It is the living, breathing word of God. And so we go to the Bible to encounter him and let him encounter us.

And in prayer, we learn how to not do just kind of perfunctory, throw on a little prayer list up to God. But how, as Jesus said, to enter in to the throne room, to shut the door and pray to our father, how to really communicate with God. And we realize that we can do that 24-7. And as we're communing with God, though, we begin to see the sin and the stain and the defilement that we picked up along the way in our life.

And so there has to be cleansing. This is one of the ways. It's one of the habits. It's one of the essential elements of the life of a presence-centered man. We are in the constant process, as Paul says, of making sure we have a clear conscience before God and before man, both vertically and horizontally. We keep the roof off and the walls down. Sometimes that has to happen with a monumental cleansing because we've gone

for a while. and there's all kinds of junk that needs to be recognized and acknowledged and confessed to the Lord. But the maturing presence-centered man keeps short accounts. His heart is tender because he's in the presence of God. And when he slips away, he immediately recognizes it.

And the quicker he learns to seek the cleansing of the Lord and clearing his conscience before the Lord, clearing clearing his conscience before anybody else that he's harmed or sinned against, the more he is able to stay in God's presence. Now there's another element, and that is filling, filling.

When we're in God's presence, we realize something. God has an agenda. I mean, God's not just sitting around in heaven thinking, I wonder what I'll do today. No, he has a perfect, divine, glorious mission, right? And there are things that he wants us to do with him. What's incredible is it's a co-mission. I mean, when Jesus said these last words on earth, I want you to go and everywhere you're going, I want you to make disciples and

baptize them and teach them everything I've taught you. And by the way, I'm with you. This is a co-mission, not just your mission, not just my mission. It's a co-mission. And I want you vitally involved, and I've equipped you for this, and I have a sphere for you to do that commission that I don't have for anybody else.

So very quickly, we start realizing this great agenda, this great mission, and God wants us somehow to be involved in that, and then we realize the second thing, we don't have the power to do that. Now, when we try to do it, even when we try to just walk a holy life, we fail miserably on our own. When we try to overcome habits or deal with addictions, we just can't do it, right? We don't have the power. Sometimes it takes us a long time to come to the end of ourself and really realize that.

So we realize to accomplish his work and join with him in this great mission, we just don't have the power. Now, what's fascinating is, is we look in the book of Acts that's given to us for instruction, and we see these first Christians in the early days of the church, and they did have hand of the power. Oh my goodness, they were filled with power. They were filled with joy. They were filled with boldness. And we say, what did they have that we're not experiencing?

They were filled with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God came at Pentecost, just as Jesus promised, so that the Holy Spirit would live inside of every believer. And they would have everything they needed, wisdom, life, love, grace, and power to do everything God was going to ask them to do. And I want you to know that there are 28 chapters in the book of Acts and the Holy Spirit is mentioned 59 times.

In fact, it could well be named instead of the Acts of the Apostles, the acts of the Holy Spirit, because it was the Spirit of God moving through yielded believers, that accomplish the work that God wants to accomplish. Just listen to this, Acts 4, 8, so Peter, filled with the Spirit, spoke. Acts 7, 55, Stephen, while he was being stoned, being full of the Holy Spirit. Acts 6, 5, they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 4, 31, the people were afraid because persecution had started and people were being killed. And it said they prayed. And when they had prayed, the place where they'd gathered together was shaken. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit. And they went out and spoke the word of God with boldness. And there's a little summary statement, Acts 13, 52, and the disciples, these early disciples, this is how it worked, were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

You know, in the American church, something terrible has happened.

We've ignored the Holy Spirit. And ignoring the Holy Spirit, we are substituting the almighty power of God for human ingenuity and human frail power.

And it is a disastrous exchange. change. It cuts the power line to the world, and the world gets us and not Christ. And they look at the church with its weakness, and we name the name of Christ, and they think that's all there is, and there's so much more.

So very quickly, what is the filling of the Holy Spirit, and why is it one of the established ways of a presence-centered man. We can look at many passages, but one of the classics is the command given to us in Ephesians 5.18. Do not get drunk with wine, but be, here's the tense, be being filled with the Holy Spirit. The filling of the Holy Spirit is the believer's conscious, continual choice to yield control to the Holy Spirit who lives within us.

Can I say that one more time? It's the believer's conscious choice. Continual choice to yield control to the Holy Spirit who lives within us. And let's just tear that sentence apart. It's a conscious step, right? It's awareness. Hey, I'm filled with myself. That's why I'm acting like this. That's why I'm talking like this to my children. That's why I'm having these wrong thoughts. I'm not filled with God. So it's a repentance and it's a turning and it's a coming back to the Lord.

Oh, God, forgive me that cleansing we talked about and a conscious choice. Lord, I need you controlling me, not me. So it's conscious step. It's a controlling step. It is literally saying, Lord, I want you to be the driver. I want you to be the Lord. I want you to be the king. We've often thought about this as a throne in our heart, right? And somebody's ruling. If you're a believer, Christ is in you, but he may be a resident, as one man said, but not president.

He may be pushed off the throne temporarily, and you've kind of taken the reins. I want to leave this. I want to say what I want to say to my wife. I want to make this decision. And there needs to be cleansing. And then this conscious control yielded back to the Holy Spirit. And by the way, it's a continual step. The tense of the verb is literally be being filled. And why does it say that? Because sin interrupts this, right?

I mean, when we seize control, we've just interrupted the filling or the control of the Holy Spirit. And we need to realize what we've done and come back to him and repent and ask him to take control once again, the filling of the Holy Spirit. And I want to tell you something, and that is that a man or a woman or a student, who is filled with God's Spirit is a mighty instrument in the hands of God. In fact, the most powerful instrument on earth.

Because when we're filled with his spirit, we're filled with his power. We're led by his spirit and all the right paths for his namesake. So we're where we should be doing what we should do with the power that we need. And we bear great fruit. The fruit of the spirit that Galatians 5 talks about. God. And Kyle, we bear the fruit of joining in the work of God and seeing God do through us exactly, what he was doing when he was on earth, seeking and saving those who are lost.

One of the ways of a presence-filled man or woman.

Yeah, Bill, man, you're sitting here sharing those three C's, you know, conscious awareness of the work of the Spirit of God and the continual desire and seeking for and then making the choice to be dependent. You know, I think one of the greatest affronts to the work of God in our life personally and in our church is our lack of dependence on the Spirit's power. You know, I think that we have for so long got the best we can possibly do.

And it's not working. And when God never intended for us not to be tethered to his power, you know, and for us to live. And, man, you're just sitting here. I was thinking, you know, we would, if somebody came to you today, Bill, and said, man, would you pray that I would just cultivate my relationship with the Father, with God the Father? Man, you would be like, amen.

And the church would celebrate. Man, look at that man or woman desiring for greater intimacy with the work of God the Father in their life. In the same way, somebody came up to me and said, man, would you just pray that I would know Jesus more intimately and just really walk with Him, follow Him? We would all celebrate, man, pray for that guy. But if someone were to say, man, would you pray for me that I would cultivate my relationship with God the Holy Spirit?

I think the enemy has robbed. There's fear around that. You know, there's a second guess that some, and obviously there's been things that's moved us that way. But God intended for us to have a relationship with the Spirit. That's right. And just think of it. Let's take that one step, that analogy one step further. We would rejoice if somebody came up and said, would you pray for that? Think about what God feels. when we say, God, would you fill me with yourself? Amen.

Because he knows that's the only way that it works, right? Apart from me, you can do nothing, Jesus said. So all of these things, you just start to see, Kyle. How all of these things, they have to become established patterns in our life For us to experience, you know, to go from zero to 60, you know, you don't do that in a millisecond. And to go from I don't even know Christ to coming to Christ, to becoming a man who experiences God's presence occasionally.

To becoming a man or a woman who knows how to walk in his presence without ceasing. God is establishing his ways he's doing it through his ways but he's, Asking us to cooperate in our ways of drawing near, cleansing, filling, all of these things.

And there's two more we're going to see in these next two podcasts. Yeah. Well, man, Bill, I love it. I know we want to pray it in. And as you're just sharing that, I know you recognize this. There are certain aspects of our faith and being in the family that you just recognize pretty quick. Some authenticity and things that are real. And I'll tell you, the longer I walk with the Lord, the more I have a kindred and long for when I'm around someone that just has God's life pouring out of them.

And you just you just recognize, man, there's more to him, more to her than is merely them. And it's just it's the God's spirit, man, is rivers of living water. That was the promise of Jesus. Whoever believes in me out of his heart would flow rivers of living water.

So, Bill, maybe you could walk us in our listeners today into just positioning and praying for just a fresh feeling of God's spirit. Yeah, let's let's do that. So I want we want to ask our listeners to join us. Don't just listen. Join us in prayer right now. And so I wonder if you would take a moment and just thank the Lord for his relentless pursuit of you, that he's been calling you. He came to disciple you through all the saints of all the ages.

As they model this, he came to dwell with us and then he came to indwell us by his Holy Spirit. And would you just thank him for a minute? Lord, thank you for that this always starts with you. It starts with your ways. It starts with what you're doing. I'm just so grateful. And Father, we just have to tell you, we are stunned that you love us this much. You prove your love for us. And that while we're yet sinful, you keep pursuing us, even dying and rising again for us. So just thank you.

And then I wonder if you would just draw near, just walk into the throne room. You have the right to be there because of Christ and to come boldly. Even if you're sinful and needy, that's when you really need to come. So just draw near to him right now. Lord, I want to draw near. I want to commune with you. I want to listen to you. And Lord, I want you to teach me. I ask you to teach me how to pray without ceasing, how word-driven prayer all

day long with you. Lord, would you teach me how to do that? And Father, keep showing me everything in my life that's not right with you so I can exercise myself to have a clear conscience before God and man, nothing between my soul and the Savior. And Father, now we come to this matter of being controlled by you, being filled by your Holy Spirit. Thank you that that can happen because you have placed your spirit in us. Thank you that you want that to happen more than anything else.

And right now, Father, all of us that are praying, we consciously repent of the ways in which we have been filled with ourself. Our thinking, our mind, our ways. Lord, forgive us. And Father, we gladly yield control to you. We give you our mind. We give you our body. We give you our eyes to see and our ears to hear and our tongue to speak and our feet to walk. Lord, we give you this day.

Control us through this day. We give you every relationship we're going to have, every encounter with anybody. Lord, would you control by your spirit? Would you control us in every one of those relationships? And Father, would you flow through us just as you promised, like rivers of living water? And not only quenching our thirst, but quenching the thirst of men and women far from God who don't have any idea how to find you and how you're pursuing them.

And so, Father, just keep us today filled with your Holy Spirit. And Lord, we're going to say amen. And regardless of whether there's any fireworks going off or rockets or feelings in our soul, we're going to believe by faith that you said be filled with the Holy Spirit. And when we surrender to that, we are filled with the Holy Spirit. And we're going to move in the power of the Holy Spirit and walk by the Spirit. So thank you for that, Lord. I pray this would be this kind of praying would

be the daily experience of our life in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Amen. Well, Bill, thank you for sharing that truth, man. I want to really encourage our listeners. Listeners, we've been on a journey through, honestly, a study on the presence-centered life, and there's so much good truth here. I would encourage you to take some time, go back and listen, look at the show notes. I mean, really ask the Lord what He's saying to you personally and how to apply it.

And then as always, I just take a moment today. If these truths are impacting you, share it with somebody. I mean, maybe put a group text together and let some people know that are in your circle that, hey, God's speaking to me through these things. I'd love to get your thoughts and get a conversation started with them and maybe some others in your church or the broader faith community. And any of these things, resources are available at onecry.com to continue your spiritual journey.

We're honored to be on it with you. We look forward to you being back next week. Music.