“No greater love has any man than this…”

In times when I find my heart laying open and bare before the Lord, usually the result of encountering His unconditional love, I am subtly confronted with the incongruent state of my own heart and His. In this discovery a painful but welcomed realization overtakes me; “I am created in His image and called to that same unconditional love.” Upon further unveiling of this discovery, I see my once perceived acts of “unconditional love” are not that at all, but rather a pursuit of self-edification. Exposed are the motives of my heart as I account my deeds lacking in true sacrificial love. I was only reaching to fill my need for affirmation and self-approval. In brighter light, how clearly we see. I have worked to edify myself rather than those I seek to lavished with love.

Like a silent breeze heard echoing through a large canyon, the verse entered my mind, “No greater love has any man than this…” Stunned at the unveiled layer revealed! Laying down one life for another will no longer be satisfied in definition only by a one time act of slaughter. Now expanded is it’s capacity to challenge beyond even martyrdom; a challenge to live laying down life for the complete edification of someone else… Him. Gentle and loving are His words as he speaks without provocation, “I only do what I see my Father doing.”

And with joy, I am ruined for Him.

“…not some elusive pursuit…”

Pursuing the Presence of the Lord is not some elusive pursuit of a far off God. It is rather an internal positioning of ourselves to step into the always present, always available presence of the Lord. The Lord told us He would never leave us or forsake us; that the Holy Spirit who searches the heart of the Father would be with us forever. Pursuing the Presence of the Lord is a forging of fortitude to say, “I will not look to the right or the left at any cost, whether it be pain or pleasure, joy or sorrow, pride or complacency. Whatever it is that competes for my attention or affection. I will position my face with unyielding resolve to seek the Lord, not for answered prayers alone, but more intimately, the secrets of His heart; the joy of His face; “…that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life… to gaze upon His beauty…”

There is no greater joy; no other place we are forged with purpose in this life; nothing else that satisfies so completely the cry inside us, than to rest in the presence of the Lord.

It is the battle we fight; the war of distraction that is waged to shift our eyes to anything else, be it fear, death, wealth, prestige or love in and of this world.

Let us once again wholeheartedly give ourselves to Him; to walk and talk with Him in the cool of the day as we once did.

Let us Pursue His Presence at any cost.

Subscribe to Pursuing His Presence by Email

Live a life worthy of death.

Our greatest fear in death, is not weather our life was lived long or short, but weather our life was lived out in significance with the moments we were given. So to live a life worthy of death we must ask ourselves, “Am I living a life, at this very moment, worthy of death; a life worthy of the call and purposes I am destined to fulfill?”
Paul the Apostle writes: “…to live is Christ; to die is gain.”
That is a statement of a life laid down to the call and purpose placed upon it; a life lived without regret; destiny fulfilled to the very moment.

“A life worthy of death.”

Subscribe to Pursuing His Presence by Email