Quotes about Presence

Discipleship is a commitment to the memory and presence of Jesus Christ that makes a difference in how a life is lived, driving thought and behavior week in and week out.

And yet the Christian gospel is more than a transcendent reality, more than "going to heaven when I die, to shout salvation as I fly." It is also an immanent reality—a powerful liberating presence among the poor right now in their midst, "building them up where they are torn down and propping them up on every leaning side." The gospel is found wherever poor people struggle for justice, fighting for their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I have no doubt that honest to-goodness, God-sent angels do indeed exist and participate in our lives, probably far more than we realize.

If we believe God is present in our worship as He promises to be, then we must frame all language of worship as to Him and not merely about Him.

The joy of following Jesus is the fellowship of living in His strength and knowing His presence as a moment-by-moment reality.

Acting like a man means developing a non-anxious presence that sees the big picture, remains calm in a crisis, and won't cave in under pressure. Godly men respond; they don't react.

Wayne Grudem, my friend and seminary professor, put it well: "God does not have size or spatial dimensions and is present at every point of space with His whole being, yet God acts differently in different places."

From the furnace of manifest presence, born of unashamed adoration and unapologetic preaching, comes an army of worshippers unafraid in their witness, determined to see others discover what they have found in the LORD.

Eventually everyone vacates church where God is not obviously present and working. Getting people back to church is pointless unless God comes back first—that's what Vertical Church is all about! Ritual church, tradition church, felt-need church, emotional-hype church, rules church, Bible-boredom church, relevant church, and many other iterations are all horizontal substitutes for God come down, we all get rocked and radically altered, Vertical Church.

Times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord (Acts 3:20).

I've never seen the Holy Spirit, but I've seen His powerful wind blowing through people's lives.

Mary was still thinking in terms of a dead body when Jesus confronted her with His living presence.