God is always there with you. No matter the problem you are facing whether in your marriage, job, career or life, He is always behind you making good plans for you. He is not being recognized because He doesn’t come the way we expect Him to come. one thing we should know is that our ways are not His ways. He has His own way of doing things so just trust and believe in Him.
i want to submit to you
that jesus is there
in this difficult moment in your
marriage in this trying moment in your
finances in this struggle on your job in
this difficulty in this relationship
you’re rubbing corners with your boss or
your spouse or this struggle you’re
having on your university campus or in
your high school campus this hard time
that you were having he is there he just
may have come in the package you don’t
prefer
and that oftentimes the fingerprints of
god are not recognized not because he’s
not there it is just because the
expectation we have set up about what he
looks like and how he will speak and how
he will move the prayer request the
solution that he will bring doesn’t
align with the prayer requests that we
have prayed we have boxed god into the
way we want him to answer instead of
believing that his ways are not our ways
and his thoughts are not our thoughts as
high as the heavens are above the earth
that’s how high his thoughts are above
our own and so we box god in when we say
lord answer my request in this
particular way do you know that you
limit not god but you limit i limit our
experience of god when we say lord
answer my request exactly this way i
have learned to pray here lord is my
request you said that i can make it
known here’s how i would like to see you
moving my circumstance thank you lord
that i can come boldly and make my
requests known so i’ve made my request
but at the end of that prayer i’ve
learned to pray lord do it
or do something better
because do you know there are categories
of options
that our brain doesn’t even know are
available and accessible to us and if we
limit god to what we can think and what
we see as the way we have not even
considered
the categories of opportunity that this
divine holy almighty being has
accessible to him y’all he’s not just
thinking about you he’s thinking about
your children and your grandchildren and
your great-grandchildren and those that
are to come and how his kingdom purposes
are going to be outworked in this
generation and so on this occasion the
messiah shows up and nobody recognizes
him except somebody say accept
except a guy named simeon
he had been told and promised
just like we have
that he would see
the manifest presence of god he’d been
told it
he’d been promised
just like we’ve been promised because of
our relationship with god through christ
jesus and the holy spirit indwelling us
that we will see the fingerprints of god
working in our lives this is called the
manifest presence of god
it is unique to omnipresence
omnipresence means that god is
everywhere all at the same time i’m so
grateful for god’s omnipresence because
god’s omnipresence means that when i fly
back to dallas where i live when my new
friends that i just met from uganda fly
back to where they live um that when you
all fly back to wherever it is you’ve
come from whether all over different
areas of california or afar it means
that no matter where we go he is as much
with me as he is with you
because he is omnipresent
but if you’re anything like me you’re
grateful for his omnipresence but you
won more than that
you want the manifested presence of god
i’m talking about where you can look
back over your circumstances and realize
that his fingerprints were all
throughout that thing i’m talking about
where you can see footprints in the sand
as you actually recognize that god was
walking beside you the whole way i’m
talking about what other people call
coincidence encounters you see the
sovereign hand of god that was aligning
your footsteps and setting you in the
right place at the exact right time the
manifest presence of god
i wanted to know what made simeon’s eyes
open to recognize what nobody else in
this scenario did i figured whatever
opened up his eyes might open up our
eyes as well are you ready three things
that i want to point out to you it says
in verse 26 about simeon it says that it
had been
actually verse 25 i want to start there
there was a man in jerusalem whose name
was simeon he was righteous devout
looking for the consolation of israel we
could spend a whole lot of time in those
three but here’s where i want to heart
the holy spirit
was upon him
the holy spirit
was upon him
it says
that he came into the temple verse 27
in
the spirit
verse 26 says it had been revealed to
him
by
the holy spirit
look at the presence of the holy spirit
permeating this text look at how the
author has over and over and over again
highlighted the work of the holy spirit
in opening up simeon’s eyes to be able
to recognize the manifested presence of
god before him in the person of jesus
christ luke
here he is just in the second chapter of
this book and by the way just in these
first two chapters he has already
alluded to the spirit 10 times
the work of god’s spirit is so powerful
and so needful to a fruitful experience
in the life of the of the believer that
even before the book of acts even before
pentecost even before the spirit has
come
luke points out the movement of the
spirit here in the life of simeon this
shows you how important the spirit’s
work is how critical it is to making
sure that your spiritual senses your
spiritual radar is heightened so that
you can detect the presence of god
the holy spirit was upon him now i want
you to see the work of god’s spirit this
is just the first uh characteristic of
simeon but i want to just just take some
time for just a few moments on it the
work of god’s spirit is so important it
deserves a little bit of our attention
here there are three ways that the holy
spirit is described as relating to
simeon in these few verses just just a
few ways that the holy spirit relates to
simeon in these few verses the first
thing it says is that the holy spirit
was upon him now listen i want you to
know that if you have placed faith in
jesus christ the holy spirit lives on
the inside of you
ephesians chapter 1
says that the moment you believed you
received the holy spirit you were sealed
by the holy spirit of promise
i want you to know that at the moment
you became a believer in jesus christ
you received the most incredible gift
you will ever receive this side of
eternity and that is the very presence
of god living on the inside of you the
holy spirit is not a ghost or a wind or
a fire or a dove he is often symbolized
by those things but don’t minimize him
that ain’t who he is the holy spirit is
the third person of the trinity not
third because he is least in value just
third because he’s the last to be
revealed to us in the pages of scripture
but all of the power all of the glory
all of the authority all of the grandeur
of god the father is in the person of
the holy spirit
which means
if you’re a believer and the holy spirit
lives in you
that means all of the grandeur and all
the greatness all of the authority of
god himself now lives on the inside of
you so if you are a believer you have
the holy spirit you are not waiting on
more of the holy spirit all of the holy
spirit you ever gonna get you got the
moment you got saved
now you do need to be filled by god’s
spirit
so that his influence in your life grows
and grows so that you operate under the
gifting of the spirit so that you can
live according to the fruit of the
spirit that means living beyond your
natural capacity it means when your
patience runs out you can still have
more patience with that person it means
when gentleness has long since left the
building
you still find you got a little
gentleness for that when self-discipline
i mean you just don’t have no more
self-discipline in that area we need the
fruit of god’s spirit so we need to be
filled by the spirit as we yield to him
in obedience we are filled which means
he influences us more
our mind is renewed and transformed we
are sanctified into the image of christ
jesus
so the holy spirit is in you
but simeon
his relationship with the spirit is not
described in that way
it doesn’t say that the spirit was in
him
it says that the holy spirit was on him
which means
there is a difference between the spirit
being in you
and the spirit resting on you
listen to me the gift of god’s spirit in
you oh this brings tears to my eyes
the gift of god’s spirit in you
he will never leave you nor forsake you
there is nothing you can do to work
yourself out of a relationship with the
holy spirit
okay
but him being on you
you got to live a life i i want to live
a life that is a magnet for the presence
of god to rest on me
we can sit in this conference until
we’re blue in the face and applaud the
truths of god and say amen to the truths
of god but if we leave this room and
live in a way
that is out of alignment with the truth
of god we will not have the spirit
resting on us
if you want the mark of god’s presence
on you i’m talking about where other
people can see you operating in your
gift moving about in the assignments
that you have been given where they can
just see there’s a unique favor on your
life toward that particular task or that
particular endeavor where you are marked
by something that gives you favor that
gives you his grace for a particular
area of your life then you must live i
must choose to live in a way that honors
god so that god’s presence can rest upon
us
because he will not force himself on you
he offers you this resting of his
presence and his grace upon your life if
you will choose to live in a way that
does not
disturb his presence that does not keep
him from being able to be near you
because you have chosen here it is to be
holy
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