Stay with the Father
Knowing truth and experiencing truth can be two very different things. Most of the Church has come to accept that God’s presence is always with them. We know we have positional righteousness with God through the blood of Jesus, and we are blameless before Him without any condemnation. We sometimes fail to understand how the experience of that positional truth operates. A majority of believers live their daily lives without ever experiencing the presence of God, even though He is with them all the time. In order for us to experience the Father’s presence daily, we have to stay with Him. He stays with me according to His blood that paid the price to make me His temple, but I stay with Him according to the renewing of my mind.
Paul writes to the Romans concerning this, “Beloved friends, what should be our proper response to God’s marvelous mercies? I encourage you to surrender yourselves to God to be his sacred, living sacrifices. And live in holiness, experiencing all that delights his heart. For this becomes your genuine expression of worship. Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in his eyes. (Romans 12:1-2 TPT, emphasis added)”
Our experience with the Father is directly related to the thoughts we think about Him, and toward Him. It is as simple as acknowledging His presence. The word acknowledge is defined as the act of knowing. He is as close as turned attention, and His presence as perceivable as a single thought. When you set your mind on Him by faith, you have just taken the first step to encounter the Father’s presence. The Father is, and always has been committed to staying with us, but He is searching the earth for those who have learned how to stay with Him. We all know that it is possible for a person to be in the same room with you and that person’s presence has little to no effect on you. It’s possible for God to be in a room and be ignored. Imagine that! We can overlook the God of the universe.
Staying with the Father requires me to receive His embrace experientially on a daily basis. It isn’t enough just to acknowledge the power and reality of His presence with me. I must come to a revelation of the nature and affection of the Father. The Father is good beyond our comprehension. In prayer, I regularly have a conversation with the Father like this in faith, “Thank You for loving me even in my weakness. You have led me to this point and I am not the same person I used to be. You met me in my brokenness, and I know Your love is stronger than any of my weaknesses or insecurities. I receive Your embrace. I know that You love me with a love that’s beyond my comprehension. I know that You are better than I think You are. You are good! Thank You for this relationship! I love You! I love You! I love You!”
These little steps of faith will lead you into a more stable experience of the Father’s embrace. That is essentially what I mean when I say, “stay with the Father.” Staying with the Father is abiding in His deep love. Walking with Him is simply turning your attention to Him often. Jesus said it this way, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love (John 15:9-10 NIV).” Resting in His love produces much fruit. This revelation has led our spiritual family to a place where we see just as many miracles on accident as we do on purpose. When you abide, fruit happens.
Staying with the Father is the application of a truth that God is with us! The Holy Spirit never leaves us, but we leave Him out of our awareness all the time. I have to daily, hour by hour, acknowledge the Father’s presence. It’s so easy that we miss it. Again, the word “acknowledge” means “the act of knowing.” I think thoughts like this, “Father is with me. He’s doing something today. He wants to speak today. Father, what are you doing today?” Watch what starts to happen when you acknowledge Him in this way. He cannot resist believers who desire to leave the status quo and step into walking in friendship with Him. The presence of God gives every activity in life a new meaning and a new value. His presence glorifies everything it touches. The Father knows that sometimes we get distracted by things in our life. I love how He will ambush us and surprise us with His presence even when we haven’t acknowledged it. He does this many times through a random word from a stranger or a dream in the night. He has a thousand ways to get our attention and say, “Hey! By the way, I’m still here!” It amazes me that God can literally be in a room and even mature believers not realize it.
We had a worship night at a church I was pastoring, and the presence of God was so intense. I remember there were some people there who didn’t seem to be aware of or affected by this manifested presence of the Spirit. They felt nothing. Across the room, there was a girl whose leg bones were bent. The bend in her bone was a birth defect and caused her feet to point in toward each other. She told us later that if she tried to point her feet forward she would have terrible pain. She was worshiping that night, and suddenly felt the presence of God like heat on her legs. Stunned she turned her feet forward with no pain. God had straightened her bones as she worshiped. All the while, someone was thinking thoughts like, “I wish this worship night would end soon,” on the other side of the room. God was in the room and they were not aware of it. Stories like these energize me to seek to be more aware of God’s presence.
Pray this with me today: “Father, let me become more aware of Your presence and actively walk in friendship with You on a daily basis. I acknowledge that You are with me all the time, but help me to stay with You by faith today. Amen.”
Written by Micah Usry
Featured Image by Sabine Ojeil
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