God desires to be in the center of your life. He wants more than anything for you to trust in His presence. For that matter, He will go to great lengths to restore His presence in your life because He wants you to bear good fruit through His strength that He be glorified. He just asks for you to value His presence. That is demonstrated through reliance on His word and Holy Spirit.
“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him” (John 14:23-24).
“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples” (John 15:7-8).
RELEVANCE
The early disciples discovered the restoration of God’s presence through the refreshing of the Holy Spirit; God’s gift to all.
“Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:19-21).
REFLECT AND RELATE
Read the LORD’s prayer in John 17 slowly. Embrace it. Pray it. Ask to come into real unity with God. Rejoice in His presence.
REFERENCES
John 14:1-17:26