A Week in God’s Presence (Day 4)
Print This Post
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen!” (2 Corinthians 13:14).
Have you ever experienced the Extravagant Love of God?
Webster’s defines extravagant as “exceeding the limits of reason or necessity; lacking in moderation, balance, or restraint; profuse and lavish.” Have you ever encountered God’s Presence in such measure that He blew your doors off with just how much He loves you?
Zephaniah the prophet gave us a glimpse at this extraordinary, extravagant God. “The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing” (Zep 3:17).
Did you know that God wants to overwhelm you with an outpouring of His extravagant love? He wants you to know that even now, despite what you think about yourself, He rejoices over you with joy? He rests in His love for you? He joys over you with singing?
And did you know that the surest way for you to truly experience this extravagance is to spend quality time with real Christians? Hear me carefully – I’m not talking about “church-goers” as much as I’m talking about “Christ-followers.” The two are not always the same.
When you are in the company of a gathering of mere “church-goers” you will be surrounded with legalism, opinion, criticism, judgment and debate. But when you are in the midst of true “Christ-followers” your life will be flooded with extraordinary expressions of God’s extravagant love. You will be supported, believed in, upheld, defended, empowered, and unleashed to pursue God’s highest and best purposes for your life.
In other words, you will experience God’s Presence – and never be the same. To sum it up – spend quality time in God’s Word, and a quantity of time with quality people; do this and God will be with you in extraordinary and extravagant ways!
Step Three tomorrow….
Thanks for the encouraging messages of hope, I desire to have in my life quality people; Lord send them to me is my prayer; to talk and share the great works of the Lord brings such JOY to ones life. For in this world so many people are not what they seem to be are want to be. I believe God created us to be a blessing to each other and not to live or walk alone in life.
Without his presence we are just trying to do it ourselves and nothing is happening. Lord help us to rely one you and live in you and have our being in you.
I
I want and need this extravagant kingly provision now Lord come quickly
I am getting very desperate everyone pray for me
I am an old fan of Pastor Ryle, but this is my first visit to this site. This message is good, but I think could use some qualifiers that perhaps the “short devotional” nature didn’t allow it. It is true that being surrounded by passionate believers will help you draw closer to Him yourself. BUT one who is dissatisfied with their current fellowship or relationship with Him should not use the above to blame their church/fellowship for it automatically. Looking at our neighbor and thinking that they’re singing off key or not worshiping as you would have them and judging them for it is different than being in a dead fellowship (no matter how big or fashionable) that won’t have the courage to tell you what the Bible says or won’t bother to bear your burdens and love you like Christ loved his disciples.
Great encouragement !
It’s easy to find church-goers, but true Christ-followers are a rare treasure.
Praying for you, AnnaPatricia : )