Awaken the Dawn预览

Welcoming in the Presence of God

On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting.—Acts 2:1-2, NLT

We were captivated by the thought that we could host the presence of Jesus—not just ideas or teachings about Him but the Holy Spirit powerfully revealing to us who Jesus actually is in an experiential way. The presence of Jesus is Jesus—not a force or an atmosphere. We are interacting with the same glorious Person through the Holy Spirit who walked the earth two thousand years ago, and He desires to do the same things in our cities and communities as He did then! This idea that God wants to dwell with church communities and in regions is not new, but I am convinced that ministries that give themselves to the culture of sustained prayer and worship will experience transformation.

This is how the first Jesus movement started. Two thousand years ago in Jerusalem, 120 likely young people were gathered in prayer in an Upper Room. Suddenly, God rushed on them. Three thousand people were saved that day, and within about ten years or so, tens of thousands of people in Jerusalem were Jesus followers. Over and over, even after this revival on the Day of Pentecost, these early believers went to the temple daily in prayer (Acts 2:46; 3:1).

In fact, Paul’s great missionary movement to the Gentile world began the same way. Acts 13:2 says as they were “worshiping the Lord and fasting,” the Holy Spirit spoke in the midst of this ongoing worship expression and launched Paul and Barnabas out on a missionary journey that was unlike anything the world had ever seen.

God is omnipresent, meaning He is everywhere, but there are times when His presence is tangible and palpably experienced. In these times, we are sensing God’s proximity. God really does dwell with groups of people and in places, but I am now convinced that having God’s manifest presence abide in our midst was never meant to be an occasional experience. It is meant to be our ongoing reality.

God is inviting us to break free from our spiritual hamster wheel of systemic religious activities that can cause us to mistakenly think God is present when we’re really just hearing a lot of noise. Our ministry models and church programs have their place, but not at the expense of Jesus’ presence. The Great Disrupter is calling us. He is calling everyday people to have a living, breathing conversation with the uncreated One in which we not only speak but we hear back from Him. That may sound like a mental illness to some but not to the saints, not to those who are committed to hosting Jesus’ presence so He can abide in our college campuses, church communities, cities, and nations.