Not Settling for Less Than the Best

The word of the Lord—as I was saying, I want to be obedient to the word of God, and I want to turn to a passage: First Chronicles, chapter 13. The Lord changed my sermon a little—not a little, quite a lot—because I am going to preach a different sermon from the one I had planned.

Do you see what I mean about how we have to believe, how we have to do what God wants and not what we want and set out to do, and then He provides for us and blesses us, right?

So the two of us are going to cook up this sermon together—you and I, right now, and the Holy Spirit. All right?

In chapter 13, we see that after David was installed as king in Israel, one of the first things he set out to do was bring back the Ark. How many of you have heard of the Ark of the Covenant? The Ark—okay, most of you. Everyone? How many have not heard of it and do not know what the Ark is? Do not be embarrassed; raise your hand. Okay.

He proposed bringing the Ark to Jerusalem, and that was one of his first official acts as king. And… how wonderful it would be if we had a president—it just occurred to me on the spur of the moment—who said, “One of my first official acts will be to make sure that we bring the glory of God to the United States.”

Nowadays, unfortunately, we have a president—and I say this even though there are many good things that commend him, right? He is an intelligent and very wise man, and I say this respectfully—but nowadays what many of these presidents want is to restore homosexuality and its acceptance as natural here in the United States, remove the rules preventing homosexuals from serving in the military, and remove the barriers to behavior that is destructive.

They promote abortion in our nation—things that bring a curse upon our land. We love homosexuals; we love any woman who has had an abortion and repented of it. But we believe that when a president, when statesmen and stateswomen, promote these things, they “bring a curse upon the land”; and no matter how good their intentions may be, and no matter how many federal and official programs they may try to implement to improve justice in this nation, it will all end in sand and death, because God does not contradict Himself.

So, if only there were rulers in our land who truly put the priority where it belongs! That sounds awfully strong for ten thirty in the morning, brothers and sisters. Will you forgive me? But that came to mind, and I do not want to suppress it because I believe we have to speak the truth in this time. There are other things, other nuances we could add there, but that is the truth, and it has to be said that way.

David had a heart that loved God, and that is why one of the first things he did was try to bring back the Ark of God and place it in Jerusalem again, and I am going to tell you why he tried to do that.

But let me not get too far ahead of myself. Let us go to chapter 13, and then it says here in verse 9, “Then David”—these are two or three chapters, so I am going to have to skip verses—“David consulted with the commanders of thousands and hundreds and with all the leaders. And David said to the whole assembly of Israel, ‘If it seems good to you and if it is the will of the Lord our God, let us send word everywhere to our brothers,’” and verse 3: “‘And let us bring back to us the Ark of our God, for we did not seek it in the days of Saul.’”

Notice that. It says, “We did not seek it in the days of Saul.” That strikes me when I read this passage. And the whole assembly said “that it should be done, because the matter seemed right to all the people.”

A question, although it is only now occurring to me as I read: Why did he consult with the commanders and the leaders? Why with the military first? I think it was because the Ark—the Ark of the Covenant, do you remember?—God commanded that an Ark be made according to very specific dimensions. It was like the symbol of His glory; it was as though His very presence dwelt symbolically in the midst of His people.

That Ark was like a chest with a lid that could be lifted. On top of that lid were two cherubim. Incidentally, they say that one cherub faced one direction and the other faced the opposite direction, but their outspread wings touched each other. Inside that Ark was the manna—some of the manna as a reminder of the deliverance from Egypt—and Aaron’s staff, which had budded, was also there. These were symbols of God’s presence in Israel, of God’s miracles.

That Ark was kept in the Most Holy Place, where only the high priest could enter once a year, on the Day of Atonement, to intercede for the sins of the people. The very presence of God was supposed to dwell in that Most Holy Place—in a highly concentrated form, I imagine.

But that Ark became a symbol of God’s presence in the midst of His people, and many times the warriors, along with the priests, carried that Ark before them into battle as a symbol that God accompanied the armies of the living God when they fought their enemies—a symbol that the armies of Israel needed God’s presence to fight their battles.

The Ark was exceedingly sacred, and that is why I believe he consulted the soldiers and generals: because, in a sense, they had been deprived of that support which was so important for the wars and battles the people needed to undertake. In a certain sense, they were helpless. And so David, who was a man of war and a highly accomplished strategist, thought, “Hey! We need to have the Ark back in our midst; we need to bring it back to its place and install it where it belongs.”

What had happened? Why had the Ark been neglected? Notice what it says here: “We did not seek it in the days of Saul.” Look at what had happened. What was going on in Saul’s time? The presence of God was not in Israel. There was a king who had become corrupt. He was a man slow to understand; he had no spiritual discernment, and his heart had turned away from God.

God had rejected him. In the priesthood, Eli was the high priest, an elderly man who had also lost his spiritual understanding. His sons, who were also priests, had become corrupt and did all kinds of dishonest things. There was moral corruption and financial corruption among the priests in Israel, and Eli had never corrected his sons, who abused their father’s authority. Eli, too, had lost God’s blessing; he did not have His approval.

What happens in a nation when both the civil authorities have turned away from God and God’s blessing is not upon them, and the ecclesiastical authorities have likewise turned away from God and God’s blessing is not upon them either? What happens? God’s presence departs; God’s presence is hindered. The gifts of the Spirit, the anointing of God, and the shalom of God cannot dwell in such a land.

So the Hebrews had no discernment and thought, “Well, we have the Ark; we are going to use it, because God said that wherever the Ark was, His power would be there.” And they went to war against the Philistines twenty years earlier—incidentally, I say that because we do not have the opportunity to read all the passages. This came to me recently, especially when I was in Texas and began reading these passages. They took the Ark and suffered a terrible defeat, and the Philistines, Israel’s bitter enemies, took possession of the Ark.

What happens when people believe that the presence of God is merely a matter of empty rituals, programs, songs, and physical things, rather than the actual presence of God blessing those things? What so often happens in churches? The presence of God has departed.

But the people keep singing just the same, the organs keep playing just the same, and the microphones are switched on when the service begins. Everything a church does is done—the symbol of the Ark intended to stir up God’s presence and movement. But God is not in any of those things, and we believe that with those hollow, empty praises, that program, and those empty rituals—which do not truly represent a people who are living in and enjoying the presence of God—we will receive the blessing and succeed in our battles, in our struggles against the Devil and all the forces that want to destroy our lives. We suffer defeat.

God does not fall in love with a piece of wood, even if it is covered with gold and is a symbol, and even if He blessed it at another time. The Ark itself had nothing; the Ark was simply a symbol of God’s presence. One would have thought, “God will never allow that Ark to be taken.”

It was taken. It was taken because God’s presence was not there at that time, and that holds a lesson for our churches, because many times we keep doing the same things in the Christian life and ask ourselves, “Why does God not bless me? Why do I not receive healing? Why do I not have prosperity? Why is there no blessing in my family? Why does my emotional state not change? Why are my finances not blessed?” Well, brother, perhaps it is often because God’s presence is not with us, and we have to seek that power of God. We have to go where the power of God is and make the rituals in which we participate real.

If we come to church simply believing that I will be blessed because the pastor or the musicians are going to do certain things, put that idea out of your mind. You must participate actively in the action for it to have meaning. Actions alone mean nothing. What matters is the heart that joins itself to the action, brings it to life, and turns it into the power of God.

So the Jews went to war with an empty Ark, and what happened? The Philistines defeated them completely, snatched the Ark away from them, and carried it off. It is a long story. There God defended His name while the Ark was in the Philistines’ power, and He forced the Philistines to return it. It is a beautiful passage that perhaps we will discuss another day. But God showed that those enemies of His could not, after all, keep such a precious symbol, and the Ark was returned to Israel with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. But it remained neglected, as it were, in the house of a man who received it, and it stayed there for almost twenty years, simply neglected.

Why? Because there was no spiritual understanding in Israel: “Well, the Ark was stolen, and now it is somewhere out there, and well, what a shame.” But there was no prophetic spiritual understanding to discern that the Ark had to be returned to the Most Holy Place, where it belonged. Because there was dullness, there was spiritual clumsiness; the people did not understand how important it was to have that symbol of the presence, the gifts, and the power of God in the midst of Israel. Of course, if the leaders had no spiritual understanding—where there is no discernment, Scripture says, the people perish; where there is no wisdom; where spiritual leaders do not understand the need for the power and presence of God’s glory—the poor people do what they can, but they are always spinning their wheels in the same mud.

But then David comes along—a man with a prophetic spirit who instinctively understands what the power of God is and how to mobilize the power of God. He says, “Wow, this is a scandal! How can we have the Ark of God neglected there in a… warehouse? How do you say ‘warehouse’ in Spanish? Somebody help me. An almacén, an almacén. How can we have it stuck in there with the horses, gathering dust and neglected somewhere? Let us restore the…”

David was exceedingly careful about God’s glory. Do you remember that? We need God to give us a new and fresh zeal for His glory in our churches. So David says—he consults with the national leaders—“We have to bring back this Ark,” and everyone says, “Of course.” Amen, let us bring it back. Brothers and sisters, I feel—why am I preaching this?

I feel that God has spoken to me during this time about our need to seek the glory of God more and more, both as a church and as the universal Church of Christ throughout the earth. The glory of God has been undervalued; as David says, we have not paid attention to the glory of God.

I believe that in this time we have a people, a Church, who do not truly understand what the holiness and glory of God are. A people who do not understand the mysteries of God, how the power of God moves, or how the power of God is stirred up and activated so that the Church can carry out the tasks God has entrusted to it. And I believe that, as I was saying the Sunday before last, there are things God is going to restore in the Church of Jesus Christ during this time—things that, like the Ark, have fallen into disuse, have been neglected, and have gone unattended.

And I believe that the Lord is going to call the Church to go to those neglected places and bring out again those Temple utensils, those elements, those implements that are necessary for true worship. Because God moves through the worship of His people. God moves through a hungry heart. That is why we have to ask the Lord, “Father, help us every day. Teach us how to fall in love with Your presence and how to release Your presence in our gatherings, so that the things You want done among us may be done.”

I feel that we have to ask the Lord: “Help us put flesh, bone, and Spirit into everything we do, into all the programs, into all the things we do.” I hope that isn’t my cell phone, because I would be terribly embarrassed. No, OK—whew! Because that’s exactly what mine sounds like. That’s what the alarm sounds like, because sometimes you set the alarm and don’t even know what you set it for, and it goes off at the most inappropriate moment. And here I am, always talking about cell phones! The point is, brothers and sisters, that I believe what God is asking of His people at this time is that we learn to cherish His presence.

I cannot put it any other way: to stir up, activate, and raise up His presence in our homes and in our services. Like this morning, when we became involved in that moment of asking for the presence of God; and when the presence of God descends, the gifts begin to flow—the oil activates the machine—so then it is easier for us to flow in that.

“Lord, help us; teach us how to do it,” in a genuine way, not in a mechanical way, but genuinely, from the heart, because I feel that this is what makes the difference: “that anointing that rots the yoke,” as the Bible says. That oil that rots the rope and causes it to break, so that the presence of God may flow, bonds may be broken, healing may flow, and the gifts may flow: understanding, discernment, the word of wisdom, healing.

It is in the midst of God’s presence that all of that moves. The Lord moves in worship; the Lord moves in praise; the Lord moves when we declare His attributes. Then He comes, and when He is present in a place, the Devil has to flee, taking with him all his diseases, all his bonds, all his ropes and chains, fleeing because the presence of God is there.

I believe that, more and more each day, we must say: Lord, help us activate Your presence, and help us to be the kind of children of Yours who can facilitate Your presence in our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our offices, our cars, and our bedrooms, so that Your presence may be in those places and dwell there, Lord. Because where the presence of God is, there is freedom, as the little chorus says.

That Ark was a symbol of the presence of God; the Shekinah Glory was supposed to be there. Wherever that Ark was, the presence of God was there, and David understood this, and he wanted to bring that Ark back. David had a spirit of worship. David was the ultimate worshiper; he was a man who worshiped the Lord. You are going to see him worshiping the Lord in a moment, if we have time.

That is what matters. If there is one thing from this sermon that can remain with us, it is simply this: God wants to bring His Glory down upon the Earth and upon His churches once again, but He needs a people who are hungry for His Glory and His Presence—a renewed people, a people with understanding, a people who are not satisfied with routine, a people who are not satisfied merely with what is normal, mediocre, or basic.

How many of us give God only a tiny bit of our lives and think we have already given Him some great thing? We are already exhausted and tired because we went to church on Sunday, and that is it. If we are invited on a Wednesday: “No! How is that possible? How dare they? Don’t they know I have so many other things to do in my life?” We are stingy with God; we are miserly and wretched toward God.

Do you think God is going to flow in your life that way? Do you think God is going to flow in the life of a person who gives Him worship and praise only with one of those little teaspoons? God likes people like David, who worshiped the Lord, forgot that he was the king, and ended up almost in his underwear worshiping the Lord; and he did not care that television cameras were there broadcasting nationally and internationally. That is a slight exaggeration on my part, but just in case, don’t go thinking, “Oops! Wait a minute.”

He worshiped the Lord with complete freedom. He was a first-rate worshiper. All those Psalms that he wrote—he was a tremendous worshiper, and that is why God loved him so much. Don’t you see that God always moves in praise and worship? People who love the heart of God with all their mind and all their strength are the people whom God truly honors and blesses. Like the woman who brought Him the alabaster jar, a very expensive perfume: she was a poor woman, yet she broke that jar of perfume, knocked its top off, and poured the extremely costly perfume over Jesus because there was so much worship within her; and she dried Jesus’ feet with her hair and wept tears of love over Him.

The Lord was not scandalized by any of that; He received it all. Meanwhile, that miserly Pharisee Simon looked on critically and said, “If this man were a true prophet, He would not allow that woman to come near Him.” The Lord knew who she was, but He also knew that she loved and worshiped Him and had received blessing, and that was why she had so much love. That is why the Lord told him, “Leave her alone. Do not dare criticize her to Me. For she has discerned that she is anointing Me for My burial.”

What happens? When there is worship, the gifts flow. At that moment she discerned spiritually, through the Holy Spirit and without knowing it, that Jesus was going to be buried, and what she was doing to the body of Jesus was like a prophetic anointing. Because where there is praise, where there is worship, where there is an appetite for the Glory of God, God comes and God is pleased. Look in the Bible at how many times worship unleashes the power of God. And that is why David—let me remain there for just a moment, because hardly any time is left, and I want to be wise in my use of time.

But notice that there are several occasions in Scripture—I will continue with this—there are several occasions in Scripture when, in the midst of prayer and ministry to the Lord, the gifts fall and the power of God flows. For example, if you look in Acts, chapter 13, it says there that one day some prophets and servants of the Lord gathered to minister to the Lord; that is what it says specifically.

It may have been—sometimes I have thought that it was on a Saturday morning, mind you; I don’t know why, because there is nothing in the Bible to suggest it. But I imagine these men arriving at one of the houses at about ten in the morning, right? And they all come looking very serious to worship the Lord. It says—verse 2; well, a little before that—“Now in the church that was at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simon—the one called Niger—Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen—who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch—and Saul.”

Imagine these titans arriving at a house on Saturday morning, taking off their coats with serious expressions because they had come to do something very definite before the Lord. I say, brothers and sisters, look: whenever you can, join four or five people in a home and worship the Lord. It does not have to happen only in church.

I love it when I hear about brothers and sisters gathering in their homes. Look, you do not need—sometimes we believe there has to be a choir with seventeen instruments, four microphones, and forty speakers for the presence of God to manifest itself. Sometimes choose an out-of-the-ordinary day, gather with four or five of your friends in the living room of a home, begin to worship the Lord, and break the bread of the Word.

Someone takes a passage, and they share it in harmony. Do not put on airs as a Prophet or an Apostle. Because many times, you know, they start fighting with one another because one brother monopolizes everything and begins preaching an entire sermon with three points and four poems while all the other brothers and sisters are just sitting there. No! If you have a word, share it; do not monopolize things. That is what happens: many times it is the brothers’ egos that kill it. Instead, share the bread of the Word as brothers and sisters, worship the Lord, sing a few choruses, and minister to one another in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Give preference to one another, humble yourselves before one another, and declare the glory of God over your lives, your church, your ministers, your family, and your friends. Then go quietly back to your homes, and I assure you that it will be a great blessing.

Because God loves it: “Where two or three are gathered in My name, there I will be.” And God likes those simple gatherings in homes, in houses. We have become too sophisticated. God likes His people to gather and worship Him there in those places, simply and extraordinarily. Many times, things happen there that one cannot even imagine.

These men arrived there with the prophetic Spirit and with eagerness. Look at what it says here: “And as they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said.” It says they were ministering—to whom? To the Lord. What does this mean? What does the word “minister” mean? It means serving the Lord. Where does the word “ministry” come from? It comes from service.

These people were ministering to the Lord—that is, worshiping the Lord. They were like a waiter serving a customer soup, water, and dessert.

When we come to church, do you know what we come to do? We come to minister to the Lord. That is the sole thing we come to do: to declare His attributes to the Lord, acknowledge Him for who He is, mention His principles, and dedicate that time to the Lord.

Many people come to church and do not know what they come to church for. Unfortunately, brothers and sisters, I believe that most believers come to church for a show, or we come to church because going to church is a good thing, and we sit there, but our minds are not focused; we do not understand what we go to church for. When you go to church, you go to minister to God. Everything that is done must be headed and directed toward one single thing: pleasing the Father, worshiping the Father, bringing joy to His heart, and giving Him the Glory that He alone deserves.

When we worship the Father, we are doing what the Devil refuses to do and what most human beings refuse to do, which is to give Glory to God. And we say, “Even if you will not give it to Him, we will.” Then we come to the house of the Lord, and we worship Him, glorify Him, and exalt His name; and everything that is done is directed toward giving Glory and Honor to Him alone.

That is why, when you come to church, I beg you: “Understand what you came for,” and tell yourself clearly: “I have come to minister to the Lord. I have come to make sure that I leave everything here before returning home. I will leave all the glory, all the honor, and all the gratitude in my heart right there at the Lord’s feet.”

When I leave, I will leave empty because I left it all with God. That is what pleases God; that is what unleashes the power, the movement, and the blessing of God in our lives. That is what causes us, when we leave, to leave sweaty and refreshed. We leave like an athlete after running ten miles: he is drenched in sweat, but he feels good; his endorphins are through the roof.

He feels joyful and happy, lightheaded, because he has done what he had to do and his body is content. That is what happens with the Spirit when we give the Lord all the Glory and all the honor and can enter into that intimacy with God. That is what unleashes the Power and the blessing in our lives, and that is what God is seeking: a people who worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. Those two things are so important: in Spirit and in Truth.

What happened to David is interesting, because I believe David wanted to worship the Lord in Spirit, but he did not do it in Truth, and there was a problem the first time: there was death. That is part of the story, of the plot here, because sometimes we have good intentions but do not know how to worship the Lord truly, as He has said He is to be worshiped. We do not have the truth, the truth component. We have the Spirit—good intentions, passion, and a desire to worship the Lord—but we do it without discipline, and that is not enough. There must be structure, there must be clarity, and there must be biblical truth underlying the worship so that God may receive it properly and it may have its intended impact.

So David—and well, once again, let us look for a moment, returning to these men, all of them males, right? It says: “As they ministered to the Lord...” Thank God it says “ministered to the Lord,” because if it had only said, “as they ministered,” one would not clearly understand what happened there. “They were blessing the Lord, praying, and reading the Word.”

It was all like one great plea for God to be pleased, and they were fasting. “Fasting” is a word that nowadays we often do not even know how to spell. Many of us need to fast and ask the Lord to give us strength. Fasting is powerful; fasting has power. We need to rediscover these instruments that have been hidden and neglected. We need to ask the Lord for the capacity to understand, in that combination of praise, worship, ministry of the Word, prophecy, and ministering to one another.

What happened? The Holy Spirit spoke; the Holy Spirit manifested Himself. It was not that the Holy Spirit spoke—let us say, in one manner; I do not believe it was audible—as though a voice came out of the air and said what follows. Rather, prophecy flowed. The prophetic Spirit came upon one of these men, who were Prophets, and he prophesied and said, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then, after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them away.

Brothers and sisters, that is the moment, one of the most important moments in the entire history of the Church, in the two thousand years that the Church of Jesus Christ has been on Earth; that is one of the most important moments. Why? Because that was where the ministry of the Apostle Paul began. Until that moment, Saul was simply a man who was somewhat known because he had been a Pharisee who persecuted the Church; he had converted, but he was more or less simply a servant of God, without authority.

He did not yet have a specific ministerial calling. But from that day on, the Holy Spirit said, “I want that man, Saul, and Barnabas; set them apart for me, because I have a special work for them.”

Then those Apostles—those Prophets, rather—and these teachers understood and laid hands on them, perhaps after a time of fasting; it says, “Fasting and praying.” I suspect they said, “You know what? Let us take some time to prepare; let us all fast,” and perhaps a few days later they gathered together in fasting and prayer and laid hands on Paul—he was Saul at that time.

And on Barnabas, and they consecrated them for ministry and sent them out into one of the most powerful ministries the whole Earth has ever known: the ministry of Paul, who wrote two-thirds of the New Testament and unleashed the movement of the Church in the first century.

Where did such a powerful ministry and that prophetic word come from? From an ordinary meeting where people ministered to the Lord and worshiped the Lord. See? Do you see what the declaration of God’s power does when there are people who are truly consecrated and understand what they are doing? The gifts flow; the power of God flows. Understand the connection. I want us to maintain the connection.

David wanted to bring the Ark because the Ark symbolized the presence of God, from which came the gifts and the power to defeat the enemy and to bring prosperity and blessing to Israel; and the Ark was a symbol of that presence of God. So the question is: How is the presence attracted in our time? Through worship, praise, the declaration of God’s power through fasting, crying out, prophetic ministries, through the assembly of men and women filled with the Holy Spirit.

That is the equivalent of bringing the Ark. In other words, now we do not need a wooden box covered with gold to bring the presence of God. Now the presence of God comes fully into our gatherings through praise and worship. That is the equivalent; we no longer need to use a temple with a Most Holy Place covered by an immense veil. Today we do it directly by appealing to the throne of God, and the presence of God comes down into our midst and does what it has to do.

So that is what happens when a people learn to worship the Lord. I ask Him: Lord, first help me to discover—that is what I, that is my prayer today—help me discover the way, Lord; teach me how to enter Your Most Holy Place, how to dwell in that secret place where Your presence is.

Give me the words; give me the formula so that Your presence may come down at the call of my voice—not because of me, but because You want Your children to worship You as they should. So that I may do the things I have to do, so that Your Church may do the things it has to do at this time in history. Because wherever we worship the Lord in the way He wants, there He is.

Every day I find it more and more difficult to ask the Lord for specific things, because the only thing that comes out of me is asking for the presence of God, asking for the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Asking for His anointing, because if we have that, everything else will come. “Seek first the Glory of God, the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all the other things will be added,” says the Word. If we have the presence of God, everything else comes naturally, automatically.

Sometimes we spend our time asking the Lord, “Give me money, give me health, solve my problem, heal my marriage, get me a job, improve my financial situation,” when what we need is, “Lord, give me Your presence in my life; fill me with Your Spirit.” If I have Him, then everything else will come. If I am filled with the Holy Spirit and know how to go directly to the throne of grace, I will receive everything I need.

We have to change our priorities and seek the Giver of all good things instead of seeking the things themselves, instead of seeking only, “Give me, give me, give me.” Be filled with power; seek the power of God in your life. Let us seek the power of God as a Church; let us seek the power of God for our families; let us become people who hunger for the glory of God, because when we have the presence of God in our lives, everything else will be added to us.

The Word says, “Let us bend our knees, let us cry out to the Lord, let us draw near to God and He will draw near to us.” The Word says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you,” says the Word of God. What we need is to draw near. We have many people, we have many people who are not where they need to be with respect to this aspect of what we are talking about, concerning maturity; we have to…

It says… James chapter 4: “Where do the wars and quarrels among you come from? Is it not from your passions, which wage war in your members? You covet and do not have. You kill and burn with envy and cannot obtain; you fight and struggle, but you do not have what you desire because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your pleasures. O adulterous souls! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity against God?”

Therefore, whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit whom He has made to dwell in us yearns jealously for us. But He gives greater grace; therefore submit yourselves to God,” says the Word. “Resist the Devil and he will flee from you; draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Sinners, cleanse your hands, and you who are double-minded, purify your hearts. Be afflicted, lament and weep. Let your laughter be turned to weeping, and your joy to sorrow. Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will exalt you.”

That is what the Lord is seeking in this time. The Apostle Paul says, “Why is it that you are always asking and never receive anything? You are always saying, ‘I need this,’ and crying out to the Lord and lamenting that the devil is doing this to me, and ‘What a sad life I lead!’ and ‘How much I suffer!’ and ‘How much I lack!’” And what he says is, “Look, what you have to do is leave that friendship with the world; give up that love you have for the world.

Give up that timidity you have with God. Bend your knees; draw near to the Lord. He will draw near to you. Cry out; sanctify your life. Consecrate yourself to the Lord, and that will give you the power you need to do what you have to do.” And that is what God is seeking, do you understand? Our lives are inefficient, ineffective—not because God has grown weaker over the years.

God knows nothing of senility or old age. God is perpetually young. In fact, He is not even young, because if He were young, He could become old or would have once been a child. He simply is what He is; He does not change, and He always has the same power. The problem lies with us, because we do not know how to unleash it. Poor God!

He is up there, eager, biting His knuckles, waiting for us to learn how to call upon His power so that He can move as He wishes; so that He may rise from His throne and cover the earth with His power. Because there is a church that knows how to bring His power down upon the earth.

But we are at that point; do you see the connection? I wanted to talk about maturity, but God is putting it all together. He says, “If you want My glory, get moving. If you want My power, do what you have to do. Seek Me as I deserve to be sought. I am not to be sought like just anybody out there. You must seek Me as I say. I will come down, but you had better know the protocol for approaching Me.”

Because we want to see the glory of God, but we do not know how to woo Him, how one asks that Almighty, absolutely, incredibly Holy Father to descend upon our lives.

When we learn to worship the Lord, great things happen.

I am going to leave it there. Later, when you can, look up one more passage to complete what I was telling you: when we stir up the presence of God and God comes down. It is the passage where Paul and—I think it is Silas—are prisoners… If anyone remembers it, send it to me, and they worship the Lord. They are imprisoned; they have just been flogged, and they worship the Lord, and the glory of God descends at that moment, the chains break, and that jailer—there in Acts 16, verse 25—“but at midnight, as Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, the prisoners were listening to them; and then there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains came loose.” Because where the presence of God is, there are no chains. There can be no chains.

Prisons are compelled to open. Where the presence of God is, brought by worship. How much must it have cost Paul and his companion to worship the Lord with blood running down their backs after they had been flogged? Had it been you or me, we would have said, “Lord, how could You allow them to flog me? Now I am not going to serve You anymore, at least for six months, so You will learn.” But Paul is flogged, stoned, thrown into prison, and they worship the Lord.

I ask the Lord for that spirit, because we suffer the slightest little thing and immediately stop worshiping the Lord, stop serving Him, become resentful toward Him, and grow cold. Paul and Silas worshiped Him; they worshiped Him, and while they sang hymns, the presence of God came down and broke the chains; the prison doors opened. That jailer, who had perhaps flogged them himself, fell at their feet and said to them, “What must I do to be saved?”

That very night they were eating mangú with codfish in the jailer’s own house and taking him to be baptized, him and his entire household, because the power of God descended in response to the worship and the cry to God.

Let us ask the Lord to visit us with His power. To visit us with His glory. Let us stand.

I ask the Lord to teach us. Ask the Lord, if something in this word has touched you. Brothers and sisters, God is seeking a serious people. He is fed up with those overgrown loafers who are thinking about twenty thousand things while they worship. The lukewarm make the Lord nauseous, you know? God is seeking a renewed people, a mature people, a consecrated people, a people surrendered to the Lord.

I ask Him: begin with me, and begin with the leaders of this church. Begin with those of us who have so much responsibility before You. Seal us, seal us, seal us. Burn us, destroy us and make us anew. Kill everything You have to kill, burn everything You have to burn, close everything You have to close, undo everything You have to undo—but we want Your glory, Lord.

We want You to be pleased to dwell in us and among us. Burn away every danger, Lord, and leave only one seat where You can sit comfortably. In our hearts, our homes, our cars, our moments of intimacy. Teach us how to be a people pleasing before You.

Let us ask the Lord to consecrate us. Brothers and sisters, the Lord tells us: it is time; it is time to consecrate it; it is time to die; it is time to put away childish attire; it is time to put away the toys and doll games; it is time to die in order to live. To leave everything in order to receive everything, to become weak in order to be strong. To lose everything we love in order to possess the greatest object of love, which must be our God.

We have to die, die, die, die; consecrate ourselves, consecrate ourselves, consecrate ourselves. Double-minded people, the Lord tells us: become one, with a single purpose, because not much time remains; there is no time to play; there is no time to keep waiting. I do not want mixed worship; I do not want divided hearts; I do not want minds wandering while they seek Me. I want consecration; I want cleanliness; I want purity; I want surrender; I want you to die once and for all and devote yourself to My glory. Dedicate to Me the years you have left on earth; dedicate them to Me, dedicate them to Me. Dedicate to Me the strength you have; consecrate it to Me; seek Me.

Abandon all double-mindedness and surrender yourself. I tell you that I deserve the best and will not settle for less than the best, the utmost, the most extreme. If you give Me less than the utmost, I do not want it; I abhor it, says the Lord. If you give Me what you do not need or what you have left over, I abhor it; it does not please Me. I want your life; I want your heart; I want your innermost being; I want the utmost from you. And I will have it, or I will have nothing, says the Lord.

Let us surrender to the Lord. Father, teach us. Even I, who preach this, Lord, do not know what I am preaching, but I need You to make things clear and teach us how to dwell in Your presence, Father. Keep us from error, Lord; keep us from dishonoring Your holiness, from dishonoring Your Glory, Lord. Do not let us fall from the height from which You allow us to see certain things, Lord. Unleash Your anointing upon this people.

I want to invite you, if you feel that this is calling you to consecrate yourself—and do not do it if you do not truly feel it—come forward, but it does not have to be everyone. But there are some of you who should be saying, “I need You to give me everything and to consecrate all of me.”

If you are one of those people, come forward. It does not have to be everyone… Some of you, if you feel at peace and you know that you are headed in that direction… Amen, stay there. There is no judgment. No one has to look at who came and who did not. But I want to invite you in the name of Jesus. Come all the way forward, come all the way forward, so that you may surrender yourself to the Lord. I am going to be there with you because I need to surrender more to You, and I will not be satisfied until I have surrendered everything to You.

So I am there with them right now, because I need God to dig me out on the inside. Take a spoon, scoop out everything that is inside, and put new things in. I want Him to have all of me, so, Lord, we surrender our lives to You.

We want to see Your glory; we want to see Your glory. Consecrate yourself to the Lord and seal this surrender. Seal it and do not turn back; do not underestimate the importance of what you are doing. Mark it somewhere in your Bible and say, “On this day I surrendered my all to the Lord, and I will not turn back. I am not going to keep playing games with the Lord.”

I am going to be a woman radically committed to God, a man outrageously devoted to God. I want to die, and I place myself on the altar and ask the Lord to plunge the knife into me once and for all and sacrifice me before Him, so that I may remain surrendered to Him.

Give to the Lord, give to the Lord; you will see that God will never grow tired of giving to you. You will understand what it truly means to experience the glory of God. Confess your surrender to the Lord right there where you are. Live for Him; work for Him. There will be time in eternity to enjoy many other pleasures; here on earth, give the Lord what remains of your life.

When you are there in heaven, you will have millions of years to enjoy yourself. Here on earth, God wants people consecrated to Him: menservants and maidservants who give Him everything and hold nothing back. Whatever He asks of them, they should give it to Him immediately, because they have already placed it in His hands.

Those are the people God wants to bless; those are the people God wants to use. Those are the people God wants to speak to; those are the people God wants to minister to. Those are the people God wants to use to perform His miracles.

Oh, Lord! Have mercy; forgive us for neglecting Your glory. Forgive me; forgive us for neglecting Your glory, for not having enough sense to seek You as You deserve to be sought. We surrender ourselves. This church, Lord, I surrender to You; I relinquish it to You; I grant it to You because it is Yours, Father. Please tear it out of our hands, Lord, and take control of it Yourself. Take control of it Yourself. We need to see Your glory, Father. We need to see Your glory.

May Your glory descend upon the earth! Your kingdom come; Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. May Your glory come to us, may Your glory come to us, may Your glory come to us, may Your glory come to us. Send down Your glory. Stir the waters, stir the waters, so that Your power may be manifested among us.

Hallelujah, hallelujah!