When God Comes to Church

What glory in the church this Sunday. During worship, almost everyone was face down, on their knees, worshipping God. He came, He settled among us. It was pure splendor. Some had experienced serious attacks, even though I had warned them the previous Sunday of the need for extreme vigilance in prayer. As is often the case, many did not take this into account and were shaken by the virulence of the attacks. On Saturday, one person was in very bad shape; on Sunday morning, another suffered an extremely violent demonic attack. Coming to church, I asked God to do something extraordinary, to come in manifest glory. He did it, and I was left speechless. The glory was palpable.

Sitting, kneeling, heads bowed, in adoration, we lost ourselves in Him. I offered Him that I'm not preaching this Sunday, it seemed to me that I could just sit there until the end of the service, and anyway, I didn't really want to get up to preach, I just wanted to keep drinking and enjoying the presence of Jesus. I felt His insistence that I preach, and in the end I'm glad I did. I preached on the third chapter of Ruth and had a good time for a good part of the message, which has to be one of the funniest messages I've ever preached. So staying in His presence would produce this hitherto unknown (at least to me) side effect of preaching funny messages.

And as I sat in reflection on Sunday night, I marveled at the kindness of God, that He should manifest Himself in such beauty and show His presence and favor at a time when spiritual resistance had been particularly intense. But we are not affected by what appears in the natural, but by what is in the Spirit; and about a situation that one of us was facing, the Holy Spirit simply said, 'It's a tempest in a teacup.' God is wonderful to His own, we are His own, God is wonderful to us. I love His presence.