He's in town

This past Sunday morning as I was praying for the service @ LifeHouse Harvest before anyone else arrived, I remember specifically asking for a "manifestation" of God's presence in the service. We definately had a great service on Sunday as the Spirit of the Lord moved in our worship time and it was as if we felt those "Angels wings" brushing up against us as we took-in the presence of God.

I have begun reading a book that has actually been sitting on my book shelf a long time and, being prompted by the Holy Spirit, I picked it up and began to scan through it. I have quit scanning through it and have begun to "read" it and I wanted to share with you today an excerpt from chapter 2. The book title is The God Chasers by Tommy Tenney. The chapter 2 title is No Bread in the "House of Bread" and there is a couple of paragraphs from this chapter that I would like to share with you:

Do we even know when He's in town? On the day Jesus made what we call His triumphant entry into Jerusalem on the back of a little donkey, His path through the city probably led him right past the entrance to the temple of Herod. I believe the reason the Pharisees were upset at the parade in John 12 is because it disturbed their religious services inside the temple.
I can hear them complaining, "What is all this going on? You're disturbing the high priest! Don't you know what we are doing? We are having a very important prayer service inside. Do you know what we're praying for? We're praying for the Messiah to come! And you have the audacity to have this noisy parade and disturb us?! Who is in charge of this unruly mob anyway?" Uh, do you see the guy on the little donkey?
They missed the hour of their visitation. He was in town and they didn't know it. The Messiah passed right by their door while they were inside praying for Him to come. They didn't recognize Him. Had Jesus come on the back of a prancing white stallion, or in a royal chariot of gold with a phalanx of soldiers ahead of Him, the Pharisees and priests would have said, "That might be Him."
God is getting ready to break out in America, even if He has to bypass her stuffy churches to break out in the barrooms! We would be wise to remember that He has bypassed the religious elite before to dine with the poor, the profane, and the prostitutes. We need His presence. We need to decide that whatever it takes and wherever it comes from, we must have Him. And He wants to come - on His terms, not ours. We can be inside praying for Him to come while He passes by outside. Worse than that, the "insiders" miss Him while the "outsiders" march with Him!

As I read this chapter I was convicted about "not knowing Him as I prayed for Him to be manifest in my life!" I believe that a lot of times we pray for Him to show up in our services but on that note we don't allow Him to show up because of "religion", "schedules", "programs", etc... We, as a body of Christ, need to learn how to recognize Him when He is in our services. We must learn to listen to the Spirit and move with Him instead of asking Him to move with us. How awesome would our services be if we started recognizing the "Bread" instead of being selfish and wanting to have our way. It is my desire to know Him when He's in town! When He passes by in our services, no matter what is on the agenda, we must be able to "let Him pass by" for our nourishment and growth as Christians!