Don't pray that God will be with you.....

Tonight I want to give you an encouragement regarding a new way of praying as we come close to Christmas! The reality is that we should not pray for God to be with us because it doesn't change the reality that He will ALWAYS be with us for now and forever. Louie Giglio cites from Matthew 1:23 that Immanuel means God with us dwelled on earth and said that he would ALWAYS objectively be with us till the end of the age in the last words of Matthew 28:20. So tonight I want to talk to you guys about the ongoing ministry of Christ and a new way of praying instead of asking God to be with us.

And what is that new way of praying..... the brand new way of praying is that God would LIVE IN US AND THROUGH US!! We as Christians are spiritually united to Christ and it is no longer us who live but it is Christ who lives inside each and every one of us as Paul teaches in Galatians 2:20! So why do we need to ask God to be with us when we already have Him living inside of us in the Person of Jesus Christ!! Let me share with you some awesome verses regarding the brand new way of praying for Christ to live through us! Remember that you cannot live the Christian life so JESUS must live it for us and through us! That is the unmistakable teaching of Galatians 2:20!

John 14:15-17
If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He ABIDES with you and will BE IN YOU!

Ephesians 3:14-21
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit IN the inner man,so that Christ may DWELL IN your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be FILLED UP to all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works WITHIN us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

Colossians 1:25-27
Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is CHRIST IN YOU, the hope of glory.

Just remember the awesome privilige that we bear that we have JESUS CHRIST living in us through the power of the Holy Spirit so let me just close this note with a prayer...

Dear Father, I am sorry that I have not savored the reality that You are not only with me but also that Your Beloved Son, who is your perfect delight is dwelling in me. So I want to ask You that Your Son in me would always glorify You and make You known to all who do not know you so that the love that You have for Your Son and the love that the Son has for You may be in them and also that Jesus Christ would be in them all as He is in me. And I pray that I can make my joy in seeing Your Son in them and also in their unspeakable joy of having Jesus in them because that is Your joy Father. So my Christ shine in me and glorify You for all to see. In Jesus' name Amen!