Being renewed in the Presents of God

Today I was given the privilege to attend a worship service with a newly ordained Pastor and Friend that I work with at the prison. The presents of God was so real and powerful this morning you could not help feeling the healing and strengthening that comes from being in God's presents. I know that I had a God encounter of the real kind. As I lay on the floor under the power of the Spirit in the presents of God, I felt like Isaiah when he said, “Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." 6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for." 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isa 6:5-8 NIV. I too found my spirit crying God here am I send me. I found that my hunger for the holiness of God is burning hotter than ever. This raises the question for me, “when will we as God’s people slow down and get our eyes off what man says and look totally in the face of Jesus? I am beginning to think that much of the Church is afraid to have an Isaiah encounter with God, because he just might call us to do something great for him which would require us to move out of our comfort zone. So my challenge to you this week is ask God to move you out of your comfort zone and do something great for his kingdom.

The First of Many: I found myself standing a large Christian book store a few days ago, as I stood there I began to wonder what ever happened to personal Holiness. I was not looking for the legalistic type of holiness that has all the rules. “Don’t drink, smoke or chew or go with girls that do.” But a holiness that is driven by a passionate love for God and Christ, I think that somewhere we as God’s people have became so worried about offending someone that does not know about the love of Christ, we have forgotten that we have been called to personal holiness. So I am going to begin to look at the scriptures to see what they say about personal holiness. I am also going to take a look a historical holiness. I also would like all that might read this to understand that I have a core belief that if God will change the heart of an individual their lives will begin to reflect the holiness of God, motivated by love and not a list of rules created by some super saint somewhere.