It was in the last days of the year 2008. I was in my parent’s bathroom and just pouring out my heart before the Lord asking for forgiveness about a sin I’d committed that week. I was really broken inside. My heart was suffering, my spirit sad and my eyes tearful. My mother called me and asked me to come out and join the group of friends praying in the living room. I made my way with difficulty after washing tears from my eyes and joined them. As I closed my eyes to pray, suddenly, an extremely delicate light, not of this world, dazzled me and shone very brightly in front of me. I saw Jesus. I could see Him. Just in front of me. His eyes were like burning flames and blue lights like lasers came out from His eyes. His chest is like one of a very muscular and bodybuilder’s type. Very masculine. I could sense His gaze upon me going deep inside of my being. Everything inside me was transparent before Him. I couldn’t hide anything. I realized that He knew me thoroughly and perfectly. I was like lifeless and I couldn’t bear anymore His vision at that time. I tried to hide myself behind a column from that overwhelming supernatural light because it was too much for me, totally surprised by that vision of Jesus, but I couldn’t escape. Then I saw a large crowd of people dressed in white, so large that I couldn’t count them. They lifted their hands and were worshipping Jesus in a sort of arena too great to describe. All of a sudden giving me another gaze, He seemed to let me go back.
I realized I was again in my parent’s living room and all the others were looking, wanting to know what was going on with me. They said they sensed a very strong presence of the Lord and wanted to know what I’d experienced. I was speechless. My only desire at that time was to go back into that vision of Jesus and experience more of His glorious presence.
That experience taught me that Jesus is very merciful, close to the brokenhearted, those who have humble hearts. He proved to me that He accepted my repentance prayer so I could receive His forgiveness knowing that He didn’t hold anything against me anymore about my sin that I’d acknowledged. God is Love.
Jesus really has to be experienced. We are ashamed when the spotlight shines on us and we want to hide. We choose the shadows. We switch off so we can be invisible. Maybe you are here and God is trying to show you your mistakes and you don’t want to accept them. If that is the case, you are hiding, you are running from the presence of God. Don’t do that please. Come into the light. Don’t choose the shadows.
You can’t hide from His presence. You can’t shut it down. You can’t contain it. That’s what Jesus came to change. You can’t contain the presence of God under house arrest. And Jesus wanted to show that God can go to parties. God goes fishing. God climbs mountains. God rides donkeys.
God embraces prostitutes. God’s presence was concentrated in one person and we killed him. We removed the presence of God and it was all of us who did it. Do you know why Indiana Jones didn’t find the ark? Because the ark is not buried, the ark is alive. We are mobile arks of the covenant. Do you want to touch the presence of God on earth, do you want to experience it, then shake my hand. Christ in us is the hope of glory. And he said, go into all the world carrying my presence. As David the King of Israel carried the ark of the covenant representing the presence of God, back into Jerusalem, now from Jerusalem, we go into Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth carrying the ark. And he said this, I will be with you into the very end of the ages. It is not just for evangelists, he said my presence will be with you. You don’t just go market a religious product and start a few churches. If we set foot in Ibiza, we bring the presence of God. If we become the head of a business, the presence of God takes over that business. We are the ark of the covenant. The presence of God is in us. God is not found in buildings but in us. For those that have heard about Asuza in church history, it is when the charismatic movement, the Holy Spirit revival was birthed.
And today is the 111th anniversary of the Asuza street outpouring. Theologies, dogmas and centuries of church traditions can’t contain the Holy Spirit. On that day, the Spirit came back as on the day of Pentecost and speaking in tongues, signs and wonders began to occur again because of the presence of God. God answer the cry of William Seymour and his friends on that day. What are you crying for?
THE CRY IN THE SHADOW
I want to look at the particular moment when it seemed like the presence of God departed from Jesus on this earth. As he was hanging on the cross, he felt a sense of abandonment by His Father in heaven which cause darkness to invade Jerusalem for 3 hours.
He cried in Matthew 27:46, Eli Eli Lama Sabachtani? My God, my God why have you forsaken me?
The Father couldn’t continue to see His beloved Son hanging on the cross and suffering like that. He distanced himself. Why? His Son was litterally naked on the cross. No clothes. The Father couldn’t continue to see this treatment of His Son. By his stripes we are healed. God expelled His Son from His presence for us to have the possibility to come back into His presence that we abandoned. We abandoned God and for God to bring us back to Himself, He had to abandon His beloved Son. He had to loose Jesus in order to have us. Jesus paid for our faults. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. Today is the day of salvation, now is your time of salvation. This is the end of solitude. This is the end of living far from God. God is present here. He is the eternal present and He wants to be present in your life.
How could we experience reconciliation with God if Christ wasn’t sacrified ? And how can we continue to stay far from God now that His sacrifice is accomplished ? I urge you, be reconciled with God.
During our last week street evangelism outreach, Bernard shared with a philosophy student this illustration that I love. Imagine a palace with a servant inside serving a master or a king. The palace can be beautiful, the servant can be inside serving his master but what matters is the identity of the master. It is the master who commands everything. And that is the illustration of our being. Our body is the palace. Our soul is the servant and our spirit the master. It is our spirit who commands. Our spirit must be in the hands of God. It must become one with God’s Spirit, the Father’s Spirit. Is it?
Jesus experienced spiritual death before physical death. That is the reason he gave his spirit into His Father’s hand before his physical death. He knew that the only way to be resurrected is to be sure of the life of his spirit and his spirit will only live if it is placed into the hands of the Father who is the source of all life.
The presence of God is what we need to cherish the most. When you find yourself in the dark, cry for the light. Don’t choose the shadows.
THE CRY OF ALL CRIES
Eli Eli Lama Sabachtani? My God my God, why have you forsaken me?
Matthew 27:46 is also a citation by Jesus of Ps 22:1 where king David pronounced those words. I remarked a detail in the introduction of this psalm where it was specified that the psalm should be sung to the tune of « a deer of the dawn. » This make me think of a baby deer abandonned, alone, in a dark, crying for the presence of his mother, at dawn.
This also reminds me of the Disney story of Bambi especially the situation following the death of his mother. Bambi was desperately in search for his mother in the cold bush, left alone. It breaks my heart because at this particular time we know that Bambi can’t be with his mother again, That is the end of the illustration because Jesus is not Bambi. And his Father is not dead and will never be.
Let’s read Ps 42:1 « As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. » Jesus is searching for His Father’s presence at this particular moment. A very painful situation for Him. We can see that situation as abandonment or a situation of rejection. That brings us to the problem of rejection which we will consider later.
Why is this the cry of all cries ? It is the only moment Jesus was complaining to His Father. Jesus wasn’t a complainer. Let me remind you that he did not complain about all the bad things that happened to Him. He experienced rejection and hate from religious authorities. Abandonment by his disciples. Betrayal by Judas Iscariot. And again the rejection of the crowd he had fed. He never complained about this. But he complained about His Father’s abandonment. Men can abandon me but not you my Father. You are all I have. That’s what he seemed to be saying. Why Daddy are you distancing yourself from me? I only have you, no one else.
Can we identify ourselves with this heart cry of the Son?
Christ’s being forsaken by his Father was the most grievous of his sufferings, and the only one that he complained about. He did not say, “Why am I scourged? And why spit upon? And why nailed to the cross? Nor did he say to his disciples, when they turned their backs on him, Why have you forsaken me?
But when his Father stood at a distance, he cried, but even when he was forsaken by his Father, he kept hold of him as his God. This supported him, and bore him up, that even in the depths of his sufferings God was his God, and this he resolved to hold on tight to. To feel forsaken by God is one of the worst feelings in the world. The son and the Father being separated. This cry stands also for all our cries, all our sufferings, all our rebellion, All our rejection.
THE CRIES IN THE LIGHT
Last saturday, I was sad because I had been praying for the city of Strasbourg to grant us the stadium in order to organize an evangelistic event and the answer was no for the second time. But I will not be discouraged even though I was sad. I will continue to press on in prayer because I am convinced that it is the will of God to see our city saved by the preaching of the gospel.
Will we trust when we are not seeing the promise fulfilled? Waiting is fire and it transforms us. Will we trust while we wait? Do the promises become my identity? The fire confronts every false identity. Otherwise my promises fulfilled could become my idol. Putting my vision above other visions or competing with other ministries. It is not for me to fulfill my promise, but for God. Can we learn to rest in the Lord?
God is in a great work to bring back all who are not His yet. Even if you are living in guilt, away from God or you don’t believe that God loves you, He ultimately loves you. He never abandons anyone. Joshua 1:5 « I will never leave you nor forsake you ». Ps 34:6, God saves everyone who cry to Him. What are you crying for? God is ready to save you.
Abandonment is a deep feeling of not being desired, wanted, valued. We want people to love us but we sense that they do not. We want to be a part of a group but we see ourselves excluded. It can happen in the church, even here among us. The origin of abandonment or rejection is sin, which originated in the garden. The communion between God and man was broken. It can also originate from being an undesired child. Not being sufficiently loved, not being unconditionally loved. The absence of a parent. Not being the favorite child in a family. Betrayals and break-ups in our adult life. We can react passively by isolating ourselves. Defensively by hardening our hearts or giving ourselves to addictions. Offensively by rejecting others, giving ourselves to anger, manipulation or a need to be recognized.
Abandonment can lead to an orphan spirit that we need to bind and defeat. We need to identify rejection and name it as the root of our problem. Accept the Love of God. Forgive, bless and accept those who reject us. Letting go of self-pity and self-protection. Take the responsibility by accepting ourselves, being conscious of our value, refusing the lies that pollute our relationships. And letting God transform our character. Jesus didn’t fake it at the cross! He identified His abandonment by His Father and expressed it.
Jesus was killed on friday but then there is easter sunday! He rose again and there is victory! Instead of getting upset when things are not going your way, why not believe that God knows what He is doing. God I trust you even though I do not understand.
Joseph as a teenager had dreams. Every step of his life was strategically orchestrated. Don’t isolate them. If you do, it doesn’t make sense. Joseph went through years doing the right things despite the wrong things, the betrayals, the loneliness, the bad times, the problems happening. They were moving him little by little into his destiny. If he hadn’t been sold into slavery maybe he would not been in Egypt and become a great state leader in charge of the nation of Egypt. It looked like trouble, but really it was the hand of God. All part of God’s plan. Keep doing the right thing and God will connect the dots. God uses the trouble for our good. Do we lose battles, yes. We don’t disguise pain. We don’t choose the shadows. Jesus cried out his pain.
The art of brokenness
In our society, pain and painful experiences are often masked and covered up by our behavior. Society teaches us to rather hide them in our souls. To reflect and be honest about one´s struggles in life is often perceived as not living a victorious Christian life. We don´t need to fake life! We are loved no matter what! There are days we can find hard not yet clearly seeing what our next steps are. Trusting him that it will all work out is the solution!
There is a Japanese art of repairing pottery. Kintsugi or “golden joinery”. Instead of throwing pottery away when it is broken, it is fixed. This art repairs the broken pieces with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold. So instead of hiding the brokenness it actually highlights it while visualizing mends and seams. The gold can be seen from a distance! Out of brokenness came this!
I find this totally intriguing! Should we not carry our pain more visibly? What would sharing life look like if we became more honest and real with each other instead of sometimes faking through ministry, covering up our sense of loneliness, failure, sin? Rather than disguising pain, we are invited to treat it as part of our history, shaping our lives and hopefully molding us to be more like Jesus. You can be restored. Isaiah 64:8: “Yet you, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.”
What is the most important thing? The promise or the presence? Moses said to God: I will not go if you do not come with me. He is our exceedingly great reward. We are the people of the presence. I don’t care, Give me my Jesus. I love my Jesus! Trusting him is the point. Do you think you’ll be happier when the promise is fulfilled? If you are not happy with God today, you’ll be never satisfied. He is our dream, he is the reward. We may forget the promise but he will not forget! He is our dream. He will always be ours. He is my reward. Don’t lose your dreams. Give them back to God. We don’t want this promise, this dream without God. Never let any dream shine brighter than God. Never let any promise become greater than God.
« Hope is patience with the lamp lit ». Tertullian. And the lamp is the presence of God.
How do we come close to God when we do not sense His presence ?
- Prayer and fasting
- Reading the Scriptures (SWORD)
S: scriptures renew the hope in our hearts, that’s what Jesus did at the cross, he cited the scriptures.
W: waiting by reading the passage again asking where you are in the passage.
O: observe the passage with a pencil in hand and note your observations.
R: request the Holy Spirit to help you see how all this applies to your life.
D: dedicate yourself by committing to letting God transform you
- Worshipping
The story of the song “as a deer”.
The song is based on Ps 42:1 and was written by Marty Nystrom in the 80s during a time of fasting when he was searching for God. He went on a spiritual retreat in Texas in the summer and on his 19th day of fasting, he found a Bible open on the passage and quickly the tune and the verses of the song came to him: The presence of God increases when we pray, fast and worship.We owe it to the world to encounter God’s presence. Amen!
Jesus died for you at the cross. He endured the unimaginable in order for us to come back into the presence of the Father. Today His presence is available to all here. There was Judas Iscariot who spent 3 years of his lifetime with Jesus, in the presence of the living God but failed to let himself be touched by that presence. If he had let himself be touched he would have been transformed. He didn’t receive the most important thing. Now it is your turn. Will you prevent yourself from being transformed by Jesus? He is present here for you. Be strong and courageous. Come to Jesus. Come back to Him you were always His. Even if you have gone far from Him, He will accept you. He said he would never refuse those who come to Him. He will accept you into His arms as the prodigal son. He longs for you.
JESUS 