February 8th
The Restless Remnant:
Incurably Desperate For a God Encounter
The restless remnant is comprised of “the few, the humble, and the broken” who refuse to bow their knees to false gods, false messiahs, false shepherds, or trivial religious pursuits because they want only to see His face and dwell in His presence. The big problem with this remnant is that its members aren't easily cataloged, cross-referenced, or “boxed.” Their only common characteristic (and the only prerequisite for membership) is their defining hunger for the presence of the living God (The God Catchers, pp. 193-194).
Most people do everything they can to avoid labels, stereotypes, and social “tags.” The most popular and effective avoidance technique may be compromise. If you choose to be a true God Chaser, and especially if you become a God Catcher; are you willing to be labeled as “incurably desperate” and compulsively addicted”?
God finds it difficult or impossible to work with those who are desperate for the approval of people; but He can move mountains, nations, and entire generations with men, women, and children who are incurably desperate for Him .
It all seems to begin with the cry God can't deny, the urgent cry of a desperate heart longing for His divine touch. If you've had your fill of “religious stage gymnastics and emotional hype designed to excite and stroke the flesh,” and if you are sick of church games, man's manipulation, and passionless worship,” then you need an encounter with the Real Thing. 3
Understand, however, that an encounter with the manifest presence of God isn't without a certain cost.
What will happen to your social standing at work and in church if your symptoms begin to defy every attempt at disguise? Are you willing to pay the price of His presence?
Even one holy encounter with Him will permanently alter your perspective of life. Your “condition” won't get any better after you “catch” Him—you will just get more desperate than before. The glory of His face is addictive in the extreme.
Will you continue the chase if it marks you as a member of the restless remnant who desperate for yet another God encounter?
If your answer is yes, then you should prepare yourself for a life of uncommon courage and accomplishment in the Kingdom. God loves to work through people who dare to believe Him and are determined to pursue Him.
Are you willing to face the “heat” like the three Hebrew children who chose the flames of a furnace over the safety they could enjoy by merely bowing their knees before man's idea of what true worship should be?
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Prayer
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Dear Lord, help me experience your divine presence today.
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February 9th
When Sunday Morning Kisses
Aren't Enough
God doesn't leave … He lingers. His greatest joy is to extend and expand the moments of encounter. Sunday morning kisses are not enough! (The God Catchers, pp. 7-8) .
Do you ever have that sinking feeling that what we do in church could continue just as well whether or not God ever showed up? I fear that we have so formalized our relationship with God that all He receives from us in the brief times we gather in His name is “lip service,” those “fluttery fake kisses” we usually reserve for strangers on formal occasions. We also give fake kisses to people or relatives we barely know and really don't care to know better.
Have you ever given God a “fake kiss” on Sunday morning so you could do what you wanted to do Sunday afternoon?
The problem with fake kisses is that they carry no commitment or obligation with them. Passionate kisses may lead to something deeper, something more costly and more involved than we are prepared for.
There is no deeper commitment than the eternal covenant we make with God the day we receive His forgiveness and enter into an eternal relationship of intimacy with Divinity. Yet we insist on giving Him brief, controlled kisses during our rigid and schedule-driven meetings each week. He must feel more like a much-avoided aunt or an unappreciated neighbor than our Divine Groom and Redeemer. Nevertheless, He keeps pursuing us in the hope that one day our passion will rise and we will begin to pursue Him.
As I noted on page 12 of The God Catchers, “This book has one simple and straightforward focus: how you can capture God's heart.” For a growing number of passionate pursuers around the world, that has also become the defining focus of their lives.
Are you one of “them”? Are you desperate for another encounter with Him? What keeps you in the chase—love or legalism? Distant and infrequent flirtations once a week, or passionate pursuit every waking moment?
Sunday morning kisses aren't enough for the God who ceaselessly searches for worshipers who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. He is wondering when we will finally catch on and join in the joyful chase. He anticipates the day we make the joyful transition in our hearts from being simply the redeemed of the Lord to becoming the betrothed of the Lord—the Bride of Christ, without spot or wrinkle. What is impossible for man and man's ways is entirely possible for God—when we yield to His way.
Take It Personally!
Worship turns the tables on the chase. It takes you to the point where you don't have to pursue Him because He begins to pursue you. If you are a worshiper, God will track you down.
… Worship and spiritual hunger make you so attractive to God that your circumstances cease to matter anymore. He will move heaven and earth to find a worshiper. When you begin to worship with all your being and desire, your heart turns Him toward you. You capture His attention and attract His affection.
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Prayer
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Dear Lord, help me to experience Sunday morning every day of the week.
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February 10th
SMALL STRAWS IN A SOFT WIND by MARSHA BURNS
As, I waited in the presence of the Lord, I found myself craving routine and a sense of stability in circumstances. But, the Lord broke in and said, "I am still shaking many of your places of comfort because they represent areas where you have become stale and religious. I want to bring a fresh wind that will stir renewed interest and excitement in the work that I am doing as opposed to what you are doing! Too many of My people have taken great pride in believing they possess special knowledge, which they use to elevate themselves in the Kingdom. But, I'm looking for those with humble, open, and hungry hearts. They are the ones I will use mightily in this next season. Let My wind blow and let go of thoughts of routine and comfort. Arise to a new level of adventure and expectation."
James 4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
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Prayer
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Dear Lord, help me to become more humble in all my ways,
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February 11th
Early Hints of Passionate Perfume
Even then I had hints in my heart that, in some supernatural way, the pursuer becomes the pursued when God catches wind of our worship and praise (The God Catchers , p. 4) .
Perhaps you've experienced the “suddenly” of His unexpected arrival in a meeting, in your car, or in the wee hours of the morning. His presence didn't linger the first time—it captivated you and then evaporated too soon.
How long ago did those first hints of something holy and heavenly first touch your life? What did you do about it? Did you pursue it, seeking for more? What happened? Did you forget it after a while and resume the “normal” things that fill your life?
The pursuit of God's presence may earn you criticism and scorn at times, especially from the friends and enemies who talk about “walking by faith and not by sight.” They are right about living by faith, but they are wrong if they interpret that Bible phrase to mean we should live by theology and not by experience, and by mental assent and not by personal relationship.
If God didn't exist, perhaps a passionless existence would be acceptable. But He does exist, and because He lives we can live. If the Bible is a true witness, then the God we serve is a God of infinite passion and delight; and He could never be classified as a mere Divine law clerk keeping score solely for the sake of eternal judgment. Judgment day will surely come, but God's greatest focus in on a passionate wedding and the riotous celebration that will mark its consummation.
None of this can ever be “argued” into you—it usually comes straight to the heart unannounced and unexpected. Like an arrow of heaven, just enough of His love and delight pierces your soul to drive a thrill (yes, I said thrill!) through every cell of your body. If the “physical thrill” was all we longed for, then we could find solace in the needle, pill and bottle. Yet none of these will do—it is Him we are after.
The faith comes in during those times when there is more pursuing than catching. Yet God never intended for us to make a religion out of being “unrequited lovers” and “lousy losers” who never quite connect with the heart of God. That just doesn't match up with the same God who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son!
As I wrote in The God Catchers ,
“I've learned more about the fuel of desperation and the feel of destiny while in pursuit of His presence. The Lord also taught me more about embracing this place of what I previously called a ‘frustrating funk, a divine depression of destiny.' Weariness with man can birth desperation for God” (p.4).
Do you find it strange that in the middle of all of the crises and difficulties in the Bible we so often find praise and worship? When trouble invades your life, what is your first instinct? Do you gripe and complain at Him or worship and praise Him?
Paul and Silas worshiped Him from their jail cell. Paul worshiped Him throughout a lifetime of suffering and hardship. David wrote some of his most exalted Psalms from the dismal interior of the cave Adullam in exile from his own nation, family and home. Perhaps we should find it even stranger that praise and worship is so often absent from our daily lives.
What Do You Think?
At this point, you have probably read all the way through The God Catchers. (I hope you have had the opportunity to read The God Chasers as well.) Now I want you to read through a brief passage from page 8 of The God Catchers, in which I discuss the way my youngest daughter “captured” my heart. Then I want to ask your opinion about something:
She couldn't capture me physically, but she easily captured me emotionally. She couldn't move her legs fast enough to apprehend me, but her words easily captured my heart.
Some people take offense at my use of the term God Chaser , saying, “You don't have to chase God.” I understand but I don't agree. You may call it whatever you want; it doesn't bother me. My youngest daughter didn't have to chase me to get me to be her daddy, but if she wanted more than just to live in the same house, if she wanted attention and affection, then she knew which “buttons” to push. You may be content just to be in God's house, but I want to be in His lap!
Scripture Reading
I must confess that I am an incurable addict, a hopeless compulsive
seeking an eternal fix for the unending longing within me—I long to see
Him as He is in all of His glory. What about you?
Psalm 22:3, "But, You are holy,
Enthroned in the praises of Israel."
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Prayer
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Lord, You've supplied hints of “more” all of my life. Today I say, “Here I am, Lord. I am Yours.” I will worship and praise You no matter how I feel or how great the adversity facing me. I'm confident that once you catch wind of my worship and desperate need for You, then You will come.
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February 12th
Now I am no longer content just to “chase” Him. I want to “catch” Him, to collect a string of close encounters with Him. Sometimes I grow weary with the daily chase, but I must chase if I want to catch (The God Catchers , p. 3) .
The natural world contains countless hints about the absolute addictiveness of intimacy with Divinity. It is said that crack cocaine is so addictive that many who decide to “try it just once” find themselves irresistibly drawn into its wicked web of ever-growing addiction and compulsive drive for more.
The list of overwhelming compulsions preying on us seems to grow longer by the month. Some grow compulsively addicted to gambling, ever chasing “that one final throw of the dice” or that extra set of lottery tickets that will land them a jackpot so large it will forever solve their financial woes.
For others, their virtually uncontrollable compulsions lean more toward the buffet line, the dessert tray, or the hotel bars and liquor store. More than a few fall into the darkness of sensual addictions too awful to imagine or describe.
How can such things so far removed from God be considered “hints” about some kind of “God addiction”? The answer concerns the very fact that our race has such a capacity for unfulfilled desire, and has nothing to do with the kinds of things for which humans become addicted.
Have you noticed that capacity for unbridled desire in your own life? Is it so strong that you fear you would throw away everything for one more taste, for just one more touch of that which seems unattainable? If this desire burns for anything or anyone other than God, beware. If your passion is turned God-ward, why fight it?
I am convinced that God put this infinite capacity for addiction in our hearts, and that its only cure and true satisfaction is found in the infinite riches of His presence who loves us with limitless love. He is, in essence, the only legal addiction for our race in the created universe (and there is no compulsion is this addiction).
Does it feel strange to speak of an “addiction” for God? Is it because you've been taught that addiction in any form is wrong, and a sign of weakness or defect? Are you willing to be called weak or defective because you pursue Him with incurable passion?
C.S. Lewis, the celebrated Cambridge professor, thinker, and brilliant defender of the Christian faith, wrote in The Problem of Pain :
The mould in which a key is made would be a strange thing, if you had never seen a key: and the key itself a strange thing if you had never seen a lock. Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions…
…Blessed and fortunate creature, your eyes shall behold Him and not another's. All that you are, sins apart, is destined, if you will let God have His good way, to utter satisfaction … God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love.
Take It Personally!
Often, when we wander off in the wrong direction in our pursuit of Him, God calls out to us to help us along. When my youngest daughter and I played “hidey-face,” I loved to hear the lyrical sounds of her “little girl giggle” just bubbling with excitement. I loved it so much that if she wandered off in the wrong direction and stopped giggling in her search, then I would call out and say, “Over here…closer…”
Then I would listen to her stop and be still while she tried to locate the source of Daddy's voice. I am convinced that God does the same thing.
Psalm 27:4, in which David reveals the deepest desire of his heart — to “dwell in the house of the Lord” all the days of his life and behold His beauty.
"One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple."
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Prayer
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Dear Lord, one taste of perfection is not enough. Even the hint of Your nearness sparks unspeakable longing for more. I confess that I am weak, defective, and ineffective and lost without You. You are the Water for which I thirst, the Bread for which I hunger. You are my Hope, my Joy, and my Chief Desire.
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February 13th
Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil.
--Isaiah 1:16
Let us suppose we are back in the old days of the high priest, who took incense into the sanctum and went behind the veil and offered it there. And let us suppose that rubber--the worst-smelling thing I can think of when it burns--had been available in those days. Let us suppose that chips of rubber had been mixed with the
incense, so that instead of the pure smoke of the spices filling the temple with sweet perfume, there had been the black, angry, rancid smell of rubber mixed with it. How could a priest worship God by mixing with the sweet-smelling ingredients some foul ingredient that would be a stench in the nostrils of priest and people?
So how can we worship God acceptably when there is within our nature something that, when it catches on fire, gives off not a fragrance but a smell? How can we hope to worship God acceptably when there is something in our nature which is undisciplined, uncorrected, unpurged, unpurified--which is evil and which will not and cannot worship God acceptably? Even granted that a man with evil ingredients in his nature might with some part of him
worship God half acceptably, what kind of a way is that to live? Tozer on Worship and Entertainment, 8-9.
"Purify my heart. Bring to my remembrance anything that might be a stench in Your holy nostrils. Cleanse me, that my worship this morning might be a sweet perfume, pleasing to You in every way.
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Prayer
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Dear Lord, help me to live a clean, pure and holy life before you.
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February 14th
Hear the Sound!
Hear, oh, hear the noise of his voice, And the sound that goeth out of his mouth.
–Job 37:2
Once the four lepers decided that they were going to pursue the promise, regardless of the risk, they began their journey!
When the four lepers started walking on the road from Samaria, there wasn’t anything special or magical about that road. And there was nothing unique about those lepers to frighten away the Syrian army—the enemy was frightened by the thundering sound of their faith and obedience! The enemy army retreated in fear as the lepers advanced in faith. The fight was finished before it started.
There was another time where one who many considered to be an unlikely hero, also left a trail of bloody footprints. They led from a city to the place of God’s highest purpose.
Those footprints of obedience stained the ground red with the sin of thousands of generations. But they shook the earth and ended in a twilight battle of the rejected against the rebellious. When that wounded Hero returned from the battlefield, He held captivity captive and carried with Him the keys to hell and death itself. He confiscated the keys from their previous owner.
That was when God drew a line in the sand and said, “It is finished,” and hell screamed, “We have a Visitor!”
What happens when the Promise visits the curse? Satan leaves! He can’t even stay around for the final conflict…he already knows the outcome.
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Prayer
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Lord, I thank You for going to the cross for me. You are not asking me to do anything that You wouldn’t do. You, too, had to walk the steps of obedience. You did it so I might receive.
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