“Look! I have been standing at the door, and I am constantly knocking. If anyone hears Me calling him and opens the door, I will come in and fellowship with him and he with Me.”

Revelation 3:20 (TLB)

What a wonderful invitation from our Lord and Savior! When we open our hearts to Jesus, He promises to come into our heart and have fellowship with us! At first glance, people could think that this invitation is extended only to those that don’t know Jesus. YES! His desire is that ALL will know Him; yet, this message is interesting because Jesus was speaking to the church of Laodicea. This was a church that became complacent and content, indifferent to the things of God. They were religious, self-righteous and self-sufficient.

But Jesus is calling the church to a place of holiness, meekness, surrender and total-dependence on the power and presence of God! God is beckoning us to this place of holiness, where self-will is brought to a place of brokenness and total reliance on God! From the beginning of creation, God’s desire and purpose for man was to continually and habitually have communion (intimate fellowship) with Himself, the Almighty God.

Before corruption entered the earth, man had intimate fellowship with God, and walked with Him in the cool of the day. Man had dominion over every living on the earth. When corruption entered the earth through sin, man was separated from God and lost his dominion. But God gave us a perfect plan of redemption through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! He has rescued us completely from the tyrannical rule of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of His beloved Son. For in the Son all our sins are canceled and we have the release of redemption through His very blood (Colossians 1:13-14)!

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
Planted in the church, serving faithfully in the ministry, I thought I was doing everything a good and faithful Christian should do. I always thought, “I love God and I always have a relationship and respect for Him”, I never saw myself as “lukewarm.” Advancing in my career, receiving multiple promotions and achieving significant weight loss, subtlety the “distractions” entered my heart. Not recognizing how distant I became, slowly, I compromised my convictions which eventually separated me completely from my relationship with God.

Full of guilt and condemnation, I stayed away from church, God’s House. We’d visit occasionally for special events but not fully opening up to the grace and mercy of our Heavenly Father. From the outside I looked successful, yet I was so broken, longing and yearning for more.

By the grace of God, through my son’s friend, we were invited to attend an Encounter celebration. That night he shared his testimony, and through his testimony God reminded me how His hand has been on my life the entire time and He was inviting me back to a life with Him. The following week I was invited to attend the women’s Devoted event, honestly I was looking for an excuse to not attend. But I know the Holy Spirit was drawing me back to a true life with Him. At the Devoted event in August 2016, I had the opportunity to hear Pastor Kuna’s daughters share what devotion meant to them. Through their surrender, I saw the anointing of a priesthood family on them, and realized that God is desiring each of us to come to a place of total surrender to Him. Shortly after we had our G12 conference (Send Your Rain). I was in such a place of brokenness, desperate to be continually in God’s presence. There, I surrendered everything about me. My success and my failures, good and bad, everything I wanted and everything I thought I achieved was totally surrendered to Him.

In the 84th chapter of Psalms, it describes the blessing of dwelling in God’s presence: For just one day of intimacy with You is like a thousand days of joy rolled into one! I’d rather stand at the threshold in front of the Gate Beautiful, ready to go in and worship my God, than to live my life without you in the most beautiful palace of the wicked. God is longing for us to have such a desire for more of Him, a desire that only He can satisfy! (Rachel Wela)

TODAY’S DECLARATION
“Jesus, thank You for redeeming me. Because I am redeemed, I have intimate fellowship with the Holy Spirit and I have all the fullness of the manifestation of Your mighty power!”

TODAY’S BIBLE READING

• Old Testament: 2 Chronicles 1-2; Psalms 138
• New Testament: Luke 10:1-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:1-6