Has God ever broken you?
When God manifests Himself to touch His people,it impacts the lost.
I want to be a part of a Church which can only be explained by the manifest presence of God.
God is everywhere.
However, God manifests Himself by moving in such a way which can only be explained by His presence.
God is sending revival.
God, what must I do in my own life to live a revived life in your manifest presence?
Abraham lived in God's manifest presence.
What did he do that we can emulate?
Genesis 12:4-9 (NIRV)
4 So Abram (Abraham) went, just as the Lord had told him.
When God spoke to Abraham, he immediately obeyed.
Lot went with him.
Abram was 75 years old when he left Harran.
5 He took his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot.
They took all the people and possessions they had acquired in Harran.
They started out for the land of Canaan.
And they arrived there.
6 Abram traveled through the land.
He went as far as the large tree of Moreh at Shechem.
At that time the Canaanites were living in the land.
7 The Lord appeared to Abram at Shechem.
He said, “I will give this land to your family who comes after you.”
So Abram built an altar there to honor the Lord, who had appeared to him.
To Abraham, it was a big deal to hear from God, and he responded to God in obedience and worship.
8 From there, Abram went on toward the hills east of Bethel.
He set up his tent there.
Bethel was to the west, and Ai was to the east.
Abram built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord.
Abraham not only celebrated hearing from God in his past, but he also built an altar to recreate an environment of worship to meet with God in his future.
The only place that Abraham did not build an altar is when He went to Egypt.
It went badly for Abraham when he didn't first seek direction from God in worship.
Abraham walked in the manifest presence of God when he worshiped first, and then walked in humility.
His life was stabilized by a life of worship.
He built altars at significant experiences throughout his life.
How do we kindle holy fires in our hearts instead of programming?
Information must be replaced by intimacy with God.
God gave his word not to inform us but to transform us.
What does God want us to do on a regular basis?
1. Embrace a life of worship.
An altar is a sacrifice of a bloody animal.
We must meet with God daily at the foot of the cross and with Jesus our sacrifice.
It's the only place that we can meet Him.
Its a place of acknowledgement.
It says that you are God, and I am not.
Altars are memorials of the places where God has meet us.
We can't let our relationship with God become a ritual.
I want to encounter the living Christ each day.
2. Express to the Lord a desire for Him.
"You'll never walk by faith until you become desperate." (Manly Beasley).
We're not in the behavior modification business.
Declare to the Lord that you will seek Him.
Demonstrate your loyalty to Him publicly before others.
Dedicate your life to Him at the altar which is the cross of Christ.
Has God ever broken you?
When we come to the end ourselves and cast ourselves on the Lord Jesus Christ with a surrendered will, it is our point of being broken.
Genesis 22 (NIRV)
22 Some time later God tested Abraham.
He said to him, “Abraham!”
“Here I am,” Abraham replied.
Tests on God's people don't get easier.
They grow increasingly difficult as God trusts you with more tests.
2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son.
He is the one you love.
Take Isaac.
Go to the place called Moriah.
Give your son to me there as a burnt offering.
Sacrifice him on the mountain I will show you.”
3. Examine your hearts for pride.
God is still proving us and pruning us.
God was asking Abraham to resign his status.
In Issac, he was the pride of his life.
The things that identify us may come between God and us.
You can't have any other god before Him.
What Abraham did in type God did in reality.
If God's Son can rip off His robes in glory to walk on the streets of humanity, we too can submit to God with a surrendered will.
3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey.
He took two of his servants and his son Isaac with him.
He cut enough wood for the burnt offering.
Then he started out for the place God had shown him.
Then he started out for the place God had shown him.
4 On the third day Abraham saw the place a long way off.
5 He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey.
I and the boy will go over there and worship. Then we’ll come back to you.”
4. Resignation of our own strategy.
Abraham's hope and future resided in the seed of Issac.
Abraham laid aside his hope in his son and put his trust in God.
A person that has his own agenda cannot be blessed.
There are things that we want to do, and God may say no!
There may be things that you don't want to do, and God says go!
Do you love the gifts of God, or the God who gives the gifts?
You have to let go of everything.
Examine you hearts daily for pride.
If you've been through a fire, you can't get the smell of the fire out of your clothes.
It's the same with tests.
What if Abraham said I can't go there?
What about Jesus?
If He said that I can't go there.
Aren't you glad, Jesus did go.
Don't let the artificial things of Christianity get in your way of seeing the glory of God.
Say Lord Jesus, I surrender my will, and give myself to you.
Please manifest yourself to me today.
Please take my life and be my Lord and Savior.
Romans 10:9-10 New International Reader's Version (NIRV)
9 Say with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord.”
Believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.
Then you will be saved.
10 With your heart you believe and are made right with God.
With your mouth you say what you believe.
And so you are saved.
Notes taken from Darryl Craft, Whitesburg Baptist Church
M. H . Dennis in purple highlights.
