Desiring God's Presence

As the time draws closer to moving and beginning the new church in the Bay Area, I have been thinking more and more about what I envision for this ministry.  A book that has been helpful in terms of my personal preparation for the future church plant is a book entitled “The Irresistible Church” by Will Cordeiro.  Contrary to its cover, the book isn’t about how the church can make itself irresistible to people, but how the church makes itself irresistible to God.  In other words, how do we become a church that God can’t help but bless and put His favor on?  After all, if God is blessing his church and his favor rests on us, then people will naturally be attracted to us and we’ll see lives being saved and transformed.  

In this book, the first trait of “The Irresistible Church” is the one that hungers after the presence of God. In the modern church, we are far more interested in what God can do for us as opposed to God being with us. However as we grow spiritually, we come to understand that there is a big difference between asking for the blessings of God and desiring His presence.  We start to learn how to discern the difference between seeking the face of God and merely seeking his hand.

Moses was someone who learned this lesson well.  One of my favorite dialogues out of the Old Testament is when God tells Moses that He will make a way for the Israelites to capture the promised land but would not accompany them there because of the incident with the golden calf.  In reply, Moses says to the Lord, "If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here."  It's evident how desperate Moses was for God's continued presence in his life.  In fact, living in the barren desert with God was infinitely more attractive than going to a land filled with milk and honey without God.  For Moses, the love that he found in God's presence was the greatest priority in his life and everything else was essentially meaningless without this ongoing fellowship with God.  My prayer is that we would have this type of hunger as we begin the church, that people would know that God is with us, and that they would come together to seek His presence.

The Abundant Life

I just recently went away on a personal retreat up at the Oaks Christian Conference Center near Lake Hughes, just to spend some alone time with the Lord and to hear from Him.  Like most retreat centers, they have a  trail that leads up to a cross which I decided to hike on the last morning.   As the cross came into full view against the beautiful morning sky, I just felt the Lord impress on my heart the shortness of life and the need to live each day to its fullest.  Living life in the utter realization of our mortality and the hope of our resurrection is the most effective means of following Christ because He lived with that sense of urgency and future perspective.  To live life to the fullest just because you are going to die is not necessarily a Christian virtue.  In fact, it is something that is no different than the world's philosophy of life.  To live  life to its utmost because Christ awaits us on the other side is the most Christian reason to live.  The notion of "carpe diem" means nothing to the believer unless there is a resurrection from the dead and someone who will evaluate the content of our lives.  I hope each of us will live everyday knowing that to live is Christ and to die is gain.