How You Can WalkIn The Manifest Presence Of God Each Day
by Matthew Robert Payne
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Each week on earth I walk in the
anointing of the Holy Spirit and from the moment He draws near
till the time my head hits the pillow my life has a good healthy
dose of peace and joy about it. When I walk with other prophets,
Jesus often comes and walk with us so clearly that we can
identify the colors of his clothes and often he will join in the
conversation and speak to both of us or one of us through the
mouth of one of the prophets. Living this sort of life is
possible and it all comes down to five fundamental tips that I
am going to share with you, but a tip is only a tip, it's no
good to a punter if he doesn't get his money out and risk his
time and money for a reward.
These tips are not rocket
science to understand. Just like Jesus parables they are often
easy to understand on the surface but once you start to search
deeper you find the parables are very deep and rich with wisdom
indeed. I know few people who know Jesus like I do, who can have
a two hour conversation with him and ask him any question about
anything. I know these people exist as my good friend can talk
to God like me, and I know the church of believers has them
scattered all around the world, yet personally I am so weird
that I often don't bring up what I experience with the
Christians that I know.
Okay.
Tip 1: Read your Bible
The Bible has an anointing. To
many people, sadly many Christians, the Bible is dry and it
simply does not speak to them. People try and read the Bible
like they are told to do and they find as soon as they pick it
up they get tired. I heard of one Asian man who had a sleeping
problem and couldn't get to sleep each night and a visiting
pastor knowing his wife was a Christian and this man was a
staunch non believer under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit
gave this man the medication that would heal his sleeping
problem. He told the man when he wants to go to sleep simply
pick up his wife's Bible and read it. The man did it and never
had a problem with sleep again. I am not sure if he is saved
yet!
When I pick up the Bible the
Bible is rich to me. Everywhere I turn the passages are leaping
of the page and the Holy Spirit is speaking to me. I write a lot
of articles on scriptures and these are simply a way of me being
able to digest what the scriptures are saying to me. I write
what I feel the scripture is saying and write an article and I
get taught by the process. I only have to spend half an hour in
the Bible and I have three passages to preach a five page
sermon/article on. Different to a preacher putting a message
together each week over many hours, I sit down with the passage
and under the influence of the Holy Spirit I share my heart with
my readers and an hour later I am proofreading it as best I can
and uploading it.
So how could you get to a stage
where in half an hour of reading you have got enough insight
from the Holy Spirit that you can write fifteen pages on what
you have seen?
Well first you have to be a
person God wants to share His secrets with. First you have to be
a person that He knows He can trust with His hidden knowledge
and wisdom.
And building trust with God
comes from tip 2 but a tip that has to be firmly in place before
a strong abiding presence will come.
Tip 2: You have to be set apart.
Let me share three scriptures with you briefly.
2 Timothy 2:3-4 3 You
therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus
Christ. 4 No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the
affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as
a soldier.
What is this hardship in being a
good soldier? Well the affairs of life are not the hardship,
struggling with death, jobs, relationships and all the hard
things of life that come to the unsaved also are not the
hardships. In reality few believers are good soldiers and fewer
still have any idea what it takes to be a good soldier.
Unless you are prepared to lose
your mother, father, wife, child, friends, houses and
possessions to serve Jesus you are not worthy to be a soldier.
I have lost all of the above to
get where I am. I am happy where I am and unless God had taken
all these things from me I would not be as effective as I am
being now and I would not have the anointing in my life. Sure it
hurts not to have these people in my life, some of them might
return in God's timing, but like Abraham I have been called to
another land with a promise.
Can you live with a lesser
house? Can you live with cheaper jeans? Can you live without the
best model phone? Can you spend more then 20% of your income on
projects for God? If God wants you to study the word of God will
your turn off the TV? Would you vote against your party
preference because God told you to? Would you leave a church you
love if God told you to as he wanted you to join a church down
the street struggling and he wants you to help them get healthy?
Would you forgo restaurant meals and have cheaper meals and
invite poor people to your home?
God wants every part of you to
be different to the world. That's you watching only movies
approved by him, only TV shows he approves of, only reading
books he leads you to and only mixing with people that are on
fire for him. He wants you to withdraw from the world and all
the good things and turn around and serve Him and his narrow
road. I am appalled to hear that over 50% of people in the USA
pray each day, but such gross
films do such high returns at the box office. I am appalled at
how many Christians who could offer free material online to
people don't offer it free but charge people. Every book I ever
write will have every chapter of it free here online to read. It
makes sense, more people will be encouraged and the more people
that read a free article like this and apply it the better the
body of Christ will be. It makes no difference to me if you buy
my first book, it will only make a difference to you if you
spend the time to get to know me through my articles and you go
on and live a more productive Christian life then me. Having
sixty plus articles in a book that you can read in your favorite
café and on the bus on the way to work just makes it more
convenient.
Jobs, cars, houses, books,
tapes, technology, people you know should all be possessed by
you in the light as how can I use these to better serve the
Lord. I can tell you a good car that is $7000 less then the
better car is better for you and God when you use the saving to
buy 1000 Bibles for China. When you walk with Jesus
like I do everything revolves around how you can better impact
the Christians in the world and how you can reach the lost,
Nothing outside of this is important to you. And there lies the
rub. Because most Christians have things that ARE more important
to them then those two things.
Verse two.
James 4:2-4 2 You lust and do
not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and
war. Yet] you do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and
do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on
your pleasures. 4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know
that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever
therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an
enemy of God.
I have a hundred and fifty
articles of which to this time 32,000 people have read them. I
have had ten people give me feedback on this site via a comment
and about six people email me that have read an article. Have I
earned a cent from this? No! Do I care if my book sells for the
money that will be made, no not really. I only care that people
take the time to read many of my articles and it's easier to
read a slab of them in a book and then a book can be leant to
friends and shared.
This whole world runs on people
lusting after the things of the world. That's called free
enterprise by the world, God calls it death. You know even the
richest never have enough to make them happy. People spend so
much time praying for a better job so they can afford a better
house and better car, but how many more people are going to be
in heaven because they have a better house and a better car?
Jesus said to store your riches
in heaven. He said where a person treasure that is where his
heart will be. Most people don't know how to store riches in
heaven. One way would be to use your money to buy Bibles for
China. Another would be to take
the courage to email this article to five of your friends. You
would build up treasure for God if one of those friends applied
these tips.
God says that he that loves the
world is his enemy. And the sad fact of the matter is that most
Christians think they love Jesus but they love money more. If
this was not true Christians would be tithing 10% at church
instead of 2%. People's eyes fill with tears and the Lords love
pours down from heaven and bless people at churches every week
and yet these people don't give God their last penny like the
widow but like hypocrites they go home thinking they are
righteous.
You want the manifest presence
of God, start giving him money for his Gospel. Read forty of my
articles which titles interest you, take a breath of courage and
start to email them to your friends. Go one bigger, buy a copy
of my book when it is available and bless a friend with it and
ask them can you borrow it when they have read it.
I think I have made my point so
we won't go into the third scripture in detail, I'll just quote
it.
1 John 2:15-17
15 Do not love the world or
the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of
the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of
life—is not of the Father but is of the world. 17 And the world
is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of
God abides forever.
Tip 3: Show grace to others
One thing that makes God very
happy is when his people are Christlike. Jesus healed all that
came to him even when by doing so he would get in trouble. So
you might not heal, but next time you are asked for money by a
beggar in front of your Christian friends reach into your money
bag and give them a couple of dollars. If you can't bear them
using it for drugs or drink ask them on the spot can you take
them to the nearest shop and buy them something that they can
chose. I dare you. Go and do it and you will be treated like
Jesus when he healed on the Sabbath by good Christian folk that
you are walking with. Or perhaps you can really obey Jesus. You
can go and get that poor man and take him out for dinner after
church with you and your Christian friends. Buy him anything on
the menu.
Or perhaps you can be even more
radical and be like the good Samaritan. You can take the man
home, back your car out of the garage and give the man a house
in your garage and enough money for him to get public transport
back into the city each day so he can beg.
These are not just suggestions
by Jesus in the gospels. These are all things I have done and
do. My house mate was homeless when I met him and he lives in my
spare room and has done for 10 months. And he even pays me half
the rent these days, while I pay all the bills. He tells me
there are good spirits in my house as he has felt them. He isn't
a Christian yet but he is a great man.
How else are the dying world
going to know Jesus unless they meet him. Most people I know
can't even hear Jesus speak to them in their heart, how is a non
Christian ever to know God unless you go and give them an
example of grace. If you keep giving of your grace, God will
start answering your prayers and the Bible will come alive.
Tip 4: Chat to God and pray and listen
People can be really funny how
they pray. I am not going to go into it. Jesus wants us to
communicate with him. He loves us just to come to him and let
our hair down and speak into the air like a chat with a good
friend. He knows how you feel and everything you are going
through, he just wants you to sit down with him and unburden
your heart.
I pray like a normal person
sometimes but most of the time I just have two way conversations
with God and Jesus. I lay in bed at night and wind down and go
over the day, then I say good night and roll over and go to
sleep. When I wake up the Holy Spirit comes to me and we start
to walk together for the day. When you pray listen to God and
let him speak a thought into your mind. You'll be shocked you do
all of the above for a while and God will start talking to you.
Prayer is essential no matter
how you do it to maintain the manifest presence of God. If you
have a good friend an essential part is communication, So
communicate more often. You can have a pray in five seconds at
work just with Help me God as your boss walks you into their
office.
There are books and books
written about prayer. Most of them have put me to sleep.
When you go to pray your mind
will fill with many thoughts all of a sudden. Don't worry
persist in prayer and brush the thoughts off one by one as they
come.
Tip 5: Apply what Jesus taught
in his commands.
John 14:21
21 He who has My commandments
and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will
be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself
to him.”
Jesus will manifest his presence
in your life if you obey Him as this scripture promises. If you
apply the whole lot of the tips, you might with prayer see Jesus
in a vision like I do each week.
Many people don't know the fifty
commands of Jesus. You can have a list of them and their
scripture references by going to my article, “The commands of
Jesus” at the link down the bottom of this article.
Go to it.
Apply the five tips and you will
see great things happen. Feel free to ask me questions via email
and send this to your friends like I have suggested. With Love
Matthew
Matthew shares his heart
in these articles and can be found at
http://www.online-prayer.net
You can read more of his articles at his link below.
If you want a copy of
his upcoming book of articles which will have the first
sixty of the articles on this web-site called "The
Musings of a Mad Prophet" please contact Matthew via
email so he can contact you around February 2007 to tell
you of the progress of the book.
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