Happy Father’s Day My Eternal Father

“My eternal Lord, God and Father,
may I always be found in your dwelling places
and pleasing in your sight.
I will bless you at all times and your praises
will continually be in my mouth.
Like Anna, I will not depart from your temple.” (Luke 2:36-38)
Your daughter, Christine.

This writing is excerpted from my book “Pray What God Says”

When you enter into God’s presence through prayer, you are establishing an eternal covenant with Him. You can enter into a dwelling place where you find His virtue, the Lord your provider. In addition to your natural needs, He will provide you with spiritual food–your daily bread. He will provide His sincere milk and He will provide the strong meat. Your eternal, necessary food is all in the form of the Word and for your spiritual age (level of spiritual maturity). He daily loads you down with benefits. He gives the oil, which is the anointing you need to serve Him with joy and gladness. In this dwelling place of His presence, you find wisdom, knowledge and understanding of the Word of God, His anointing and joy. It is a place of processing and preparation that comes from prayer, hearing, reading and learning, and most importantly, speaking out the scriptures. You need the anointing that comes from the transformation and renewal that the Word and a prayer life brings. When we pray, we can get into God’s presence where He reveals His virtue, Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord will provide.

When you ignite your passion for God through prayer, you will find the dwelling place of communion, a place of prayer and meditation with the scriptures. As you read and speak out the scriptures, you are savoring them for your spiritual growth and development. The Word of God is the bread of life, the milk, the strong meat and the joy of the Lord, which gives you strength. You will bear an anointing that is the physical evidence or witness of what God and His Word is doing in your life.

At times this place of His presence will demand fasting and/or partaking of a diet of scripture God customizes for your circumstance. When I want to know more about God, as I pray, I focus on scriptures that reveal His mighty acts, or His mind and heart. There were times of illness and infirmities where I focused on healing scriptures and found great peace and comfort in them. I have found hope when I was unsettled about situations and circumstance in my life. God ministered the words and power of deliverance when I was bound by depression and oppression. He is a spiritual dietician who imparts health and strength to your spirit and satisfies your soul. In the dwelling place of His presence, God reveals himself as Jehovah-Rohi, the Lord my shepherd.

Another dwelling place of His presence is where you and God commune with one another. You offer up songs or prayers of thanksgiving, praise and worship. It is where you dedicate your mind, heart, soul and spirit to Him alone. In this place of God’s presence, He has shown me who and what to fellowship with–who and what I can entertain. What is it about your life, associations or environment that He might be saying “No” or “Yes” to? Does who and what you fellowship with or entertain please God? Are you praying to find out? When you pray do you listen and obey? He will not abandon or forsake your prayers and fellowship of thanksgiving, praise and worship. It will draw a greater measure of His presence, at times so tangible to the natural senses. He is Jehovah-Shammah, the Lord is there.

This dwelling place is also where you find life and peace during your fellowship with Him. Does your fellowship with God re-energize, refresh and renew your spirit and bring you peace? In this dwelling place His virtue is Jehovah-Elyon, the Lord most high.

When you “depart not from the temple” through prayer you will find a dwelling place of cleansing and purging. It is where you are spiritually cleaned up, cleaned out and stripped naked before God. This place has spiritual mirrors and God has strategically placed them so you won’t see anyone else but you. Daily, God draws me to this place of His presence and causes my spiritual eyes to be opened to reveal me to me. I have the opportunity to see and acknowledge my natural and spiritual wretchedness when He wants to deal with what is on and in me.

No matter how perfect you think you are, spiritually naked before God, everything gets exposed. We all know that you can’t bathe and get clean with your clothes on. You have to strip to get clean. In His presence He washes you with the water of His word. As you spend time to pray and study the word, you will realize that His presence exposes the things you missed or avoided when He told you to consecrate yourself.

When I have acknowledged my sin or transgressions and submitted to the truth of the Word and the power of His presence, I have found over and over again, that He removes the spots, blemishes, and blots I couldn’t reach or fix myself. I have received His deliverance from entanglements with people, places and issues that required His sovereign, merciful, gracious and powerful intervention. God unctions you to consecrate your eyes for proper observations, and to clean out your ears to hear His voice. Hear Him accurately, precisely and distinctly.

In this place of His presence you learn to discern your times and seasons. What are you consuming and allowing to digest into your temple that could defile it? Every day, I make a decision to consecrate my mouth to change my speech so I might have a word in due season for the weary and the law of kindness on my lips.

In the natural, impurities inside you have to come out. This is even so in the spirit. Everything that is not like God, that bloats or puffs you up, like anger, lying, vanity and pride, everything that is not pleasing to Him has to be purged. Trying to hold on to a temperament that defiles your temple will eventually cause spiritual death.

You have to go to the bathroom everyday, several times a day. You can’t avoid it if you want to get healthy and stay healthy naturally and spiritually. In this dwelling place during prayer, you submit your whole body, mind, soul and spirit to consecration for holiness. When we consecrate ourselves and submit to the sanctifying power of God, He reveals Himself as Jehovah-Mekaddishkem, the Lord our sanctifier.

God’s presence brings natural and spiritual healing and deliverance. There is a balm in Gilead and the oil of joy that is better than a band-aid, better than antiseptic, better than ointments, and better than pills. When we pursue God through prayer we can access His dwelling place where He reveals Himself as Jehovah-Rapha, the Lord my Healer.

God has a dwelling place where His presence is a spiritual covering for your head, your body, and feet. God inspects your spiritual wardrobe daily. Just as we concern ourselves with natural garments, we should also keep the spiritual garments open for inspection. Are they clean, are they torn, are they in order, do they fit properly, and most of all are they yours? Do you have the proper garment for the proper occasion?

When you allow God to have His perfecting work in you, He transforms, prepares, builds and establishes your spiritual wardrobe. It will be the proper wardrobe for your age, the time and season of your life, for your purpose, and your future. He will perfect your garments daily. Your natural garments will reflect what He has done in you spiritually. He will dress you with Himself—the spiritual garments that only He can form, fashion and clothe you with—even a robe of righteousness. God is Jehovah-Tsidkenu, the Lord our righteousness.

Just as you have a natural closet, you have a spiritual closet with God. This closet is your meeting place into His presence for all manner of prayer. Your armor for prayer and warfare, for supplication, thanksgiving, praise, worship and intercession is found here. In this dwelling place, the Lord is Jehovah-Sabaoth, the Lord of host.  

In the dwelling place of His presence, you learn how to pray in the day and night seasons of your life. Most people tend to pray only during the “night” for emergencies, crisis or urgent needs. I believe it is more important to pray when times are good, during the “day seasons.” He is not a “gimme” God that you go after only when you need to satisfy your earthbound needs. When you pray in the “day” it reveals your desire to seek and know God’s face, mind and heart. You will discover His protective presence and the virtue of Jehovah-Nissi, the Lord my banner.

God has a dwelling place where His presence is a place of rest, of ceasing from your own labor. It is a place of security and trust. As you rest in God, even sleep, you submit yourself in trusting abandon to the safety and protection of God. This dwelling place is where He becomes your refuge and it is a place of intimacy. You allow God to minister His love and peace back to you. He reminds you of who you are and whose you are. The Lord reveals His mind–so you can have the mind of Christ. He reveals His heart to you–where you learn and know the heartbeat of God. He reveals Himself to you as you rest and yield to His presence. He is Jehovah-Shalom, the Lord of our peace.

In His presence the Lord imparts what He can entrust to you. You conceive destiny and purpose, then you will have to go back to the closet to travail and birth it out.

When you ignite your passion for God through prayer it is possible to visit the aforementioned dwelling places everyday. He gives 24 hours /7 days-a-week invitations and the enabling ability through the Holy Spirit to meet and fellowship with Him. He will provoke you to seek out, and become familiar with every facet of His presence. Do you want to be so fascinated with God that you will inquire of Him like Moses? And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. Exodus 33:18.

Christine Brooks Martin, author
“Pray What God Says”
“Talk to God with Affirmations of Faith”
“He That Healeth Thee”
“Christine’s Short-Shorts”

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Areli MediaWorks  |  2013