Connect Group Material: The Presence of Jesus

Warm up:
1. What is your focus when you come to church?
2. Is there stuff in life that you have knowledge of but have never experienced it?
Word:
True Christianity hinges on a theology of Presence. The Christian life is based on a personal
relationship with the living God whose ultimate desire is to be known by us as we are known
by Him.
Sometimes we can actually become so idolatrous in the worship of the Bible that we
actually replace the presence of the Lord with a value for knowledge and being taught over
and above a divine encounter with Him. People can have a theology of going to heaven
without meeting the Christ who cleanses from sin and qualifies us for heaven. In other
words you can have the correct knowledge without an encounter. There are many religious
people in hell. When the Lord reveals truth to us it is always to bring us into an encounter
with Him. It was never intended to reveal good theology and doctrine to us so we can
become smart. He is not concerned about our intelligence but He is concerned about our
yieldedness, our surrender and our Christ likeness.
1 Cor 13:12
Now we see only a blurred reflection in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now
what I know is incomplete, but then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

God reveals His Heart, His Thoughts, His Purposes to those who walk in friendship with Him.
Though He is invisible, He can be felt, heard, and seen sometimes by manifest visitation,
sometimes by effect just as we see the effects of the wind if not the wind itself. If you take
away the elements of experience and revelation, you are left with religion perhaps an
admirable system of ethics and rules, but not much of a relationship.
Read Luk 10:38-42
As we grow in our relationship with the Lord we are faced with many ongoing choices we can
choose to fill our lives with right activities or with His Presence. What this means is that the
activity without His presence is empty. Mary made a deliberate choice to sit at the Masters
feet. It is time to break out of comfort, or an external expression that does not bring an
internal encounter.

Application:
What is the Lord revealing to you? Do you have Marys determination and focus?
Prayer:
Ask God for an increase of His Presence in our church, on campus and your life?