How to come into the presence of God?
God wants nothing between Him and me. He wants me to get everything out of the way. He wants lots of nothing.
That's not always an easy task to perform. It takes getting quiet. It takes letting go. We have to let go of all of our worries, fears, stress and activities of the mind. It takes TIME.
In a way, giving up our time and allowing God to have our time is a big sacrifice. By giving up some of our precious time to the Lord, it's letting go of the ownership of our time, which is, in essence, our life. Isn't it? Our lives are made up of time.
So, to come into the presence of God, we have to:
1. STOP - Quit trying to figure everything out with our own minds, our own figuring and calculating.
2. LOOK UP - Get our eyes off ourselves and our circumstances.
3. BE QUIET - Sh-h-h-h-h-h-h.
4. LISTEN - God has plenty to say. After all, it's His universe and He has the plan.
5. RECORD WHAT YOU HEAR - Writing it down is a great way to assimilate what God has told you.
How to receive an outpouring of the Holy Spirit?
The scripture says that God wants us to come to Him with a pure heart. But, I think we often see "pure" in a self-righteous way, thinking that we can make our own hearts pure.
Well, we can't. We cannot. Only God can make our hearts pure. And even then, they won't stay pure because we humans are constantly sinning. Anyway, being pure is not even really the goal. Hard to believe? That's because we are conditioned to think of purity as a goal to achieve instead of a letting go of our own plans, ideas, thoughts and reasoning.
Ok, so here's how I see purity of heart.
Yes, we should ask God for forgiveness. That's true enough. (By the way, we should ask Him to forgive us for all the sins WE DON'T KNOW WE ARE GUILTY OF because, there are plenty. We are ALL blind to our sins. Besides, it is impossible for us to be good or anything like "good" or "pure" of ourselves. That kind of self-made goodness is called "self-righteousness" which, as it happens, is THE BIGGEST SIN OF ALL in the eyes of God. It's SO bad that God calls it filthy rags or menstrual rags. So, do we really want to hold up our filthy rags to God and show him how "good" we are? I don't think so.)
As far as purity goes, I'd say the only way to really get purified is to get filled with the Holy Spirit that cleanses all our sins and spend time in the presence of God. Only God knows what purity is. But, I'd say that purity is LETTING GO. Letting go of everything. Not just the stuff we see as bad, but EVERYTHING.
If we let go of it ALL, it will create a vacuum that God can fill with HIS purity and goodness and power and love and the things that are truly godly.
To get filled with the Holy Spirit:
1. Confess sin and ask for forgiveness - May I suggest not to make long, long lists of sin? God knows what our sins are better than we know.
2. Praise God! - Praising the Lord brings down the Spirit of God.
3. LET GO - speaking in tongues is a great way to empty the mind of confusion. Sometimes our tongues are a confusion, but, the longer we speak, the clearer the meaning of the tongues becomes. There can be messages that come through in our tongues that God can interpret for us. Allowing our spirits to cry out to God without constraint is a wonderful release.
4. ASK - Ask God for His Holy Spirit. You won't be disappointed.
5. Thank Him in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth! Amen.
