I have given them the glory that you gave me. —John 17:22

I was brought up in the Church of the Nazarene, a denomination that was born in revival. There was an unusual anointing of convicting power on that church in its early days. They had what its founder, Phineas Bresee, called “the glory.”

What was that? It was the anointing—an anointing that transcended their lack of education, money, refinement, and prestige. The presence of God was at times so powerful it seemed almost impossible for lost people to enter their services without getting converted. People who came to laugh and scoff ended up smitten and on their knees in tears before God. The services were frequently characterized by shouts of joy and people waving their handkerchiefs with inexpressible happiness.

In his last days old Dr. Bresee would preach from church to church one message: “Keep the glory down.” Why? He knew that if they ever lost it they were finished.

If God had His way in our churches today, what would happen? I don’t know. I know how He has worked in the past. The trouble is, our education, culture, and refinement stand in the way of the Spirit having His own way.

When the anointing lifts and the glory fades away, there are always those who sadly won’t admit to the withdrawal of the Spirit. They continue trying to “work it up”—creating the shouting and manifestations that become pale imitations.

Once this happens, the glory becomes yesterday’s anointing in two ways. First, God may not necessarily want His glory to be manifested in precisely the same way as it had been unveiled in a previous era. Yesterday’s anointing was real enough, but it was for yesterday. Second, those who “work it up” are trying to keep yesterday’s anointing alive, and the flesh becomes all too obvious. They are trying to relive what God was doing yesterday but may not have chosen to do today.

Excerpted from The Anointing: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (Charisma House, 2003).

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” —Luke 23:34

We all have a story to tell. As you read this you may think it is impossible to forgive your unfaithful husband or wife. You may feel you cannot forgive your abusive parent. You may feel you cannot forgive what was done to your son or daughter. How can we forgive the church leader who took advantage of his position? What about the person who lied to us or about us, or the person who believed those lies? The list of potential offenses is endless. Often closer to home, there are relatives and former close friends who have become enemies.

People experience real pain when they or someone they love is hurt by another person. It is often harder to forgive when the one who has been hurt is someone you love deeply, especially your child. I find it much easier to forgive what people have said or done to me personally than what they say or do to my children.

But it is still very hard to forgive those who have hurt us directly, especially when they do not feel the slightest twinge of conscience.

But remember, at the foot of Jesus’ cross no one seemed so sorry. There was no justice at His “trial”—if you could even call it that.

What was Jesus’ response? “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). This must be our response as well.

Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. —Hebrews 12:14

When we are bitter, we delude ourselves into thinking that those who hurt us are more likely to be punished as long as we are set on revenge. We are afraid to let go of those feelings. After all, if we don’t make plans to see that justice is done, how will justice be done? We make ourselves believe that it is up to us to keep the offense alive.

That the devil’s lie. We only hurt ourselves when we dwell on what has happened to us and fantasize about what it will be like when “they” get punished. Most of all, we grieve the Holy Spirit of God, and this is why we lose our sense of peace.

It is my experience that the quickest way I seem to lose inner peace is when I allow bitterness to reenter my heart. It’s not worth it! I made a decision for inner peace. But I found that I had to carry out that decision by a daily commitment to forgive those who hurt me, and to forgive them totally. I therefore let them utterly off the hook and resigned myself to this knowledge:

* They won’t get caught or found out.

* Nobody will ever know what they did.

* They will prosper and be blessed as if they had done no wrong.

What’s more, I actually began to will this! I prayed for it to happen. I asked God to forgive them. But I have had to do this every day to keep the peace within my heart. Having been on both sides, I can tell you: The peace is better. The bitterness isn’t worth it.

I have come to believe that the only way to move beyond the hurt and go forward in life is through total forgiveness.

Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight, so that it may go well with you. —Deuteronomy 6:18

Do you believe that you are consciously in the will of God? God wants you to be in His will and to know what His will is. Paul’s word followed the previous admonition: “Find out what pleases the Lord” (Eph. 5:10). When you find out what pleases the Lord—and then do it—you may be sure that you are in His will.

The inner testimony of the Spirit, which will always correspond to God’s revealed will (the Bible), is sufficient to convey that you are in His will. If you are not in His will it is because you either didn’t obey God’s explicit Word, like Jonah (Jon. 1:1-3), or you moved ahead of Him, like Joseph and Mary (Luke 2:41-44).

But “all’s well that ends well,” as Shakespeare put it. At the end of the day, after having a quarrel with the Lord, Jonah let God have the last word (Jon. 4:11). So it was with Joseph and Mary (Luke 2:51).

Both accounts have these ingredients in common—the people referred to were temporarily out of God’s will but fully in it in the end. Is it possible to be out of the will of God and yet in the will of God at the same time? Yes. God permits things in your life that sidetrack you for a time. But it is part of His long-term strategy for your life. All that is permitted as to time and circumstance is redeemable.

Whether one has sinned grievously like Jonah or has run ahead of the Lord like Joseph and Mary, God does not desert His own. His aim in each case is to teach you His “ways”—if you will listen. As long as you can hear God’s voice and accept His rebukes, it means you are not stone-deaf to the Spirit. Not only is God not finished with you, but the best is just around the corner.

I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me. —Proverbs 8:17

Do we ever truly recover exactly what we lost? I believe the honest answer is both yes and no. Let me explain.

When we find our way back, the anointing to which we must return is virtually a new anointing. It is new because when we find it again, we must adjust to where it is and how it is manifesting now. Adjusting to the Dove is a lifelong process of agony and surprise.

Some of us take longer in our return to the anointing because the whole time we are looking for the return of the anointing. We are all prone to say, “The old wine is better.”

Each of us tends to begin trying to recover the anointing in our most familiar spot—our comfort zone. But God is saying to us, “See, I am doing a new thing!” (Isa. 43:19).

One of the reasons God stays behind and allows us to move on without Him is that we will be forced to see the new and different ways He chooses to manifest His glory.

The Christian life is a continual series of events that lead us out of our comfort zone. These repeated transitions take us from the natural level to that of the Spirit. The irony is that even the new level of the Spirit will eventually become another comfort zone to us. It too will have to be left behind in some sense. Then we will be allowed to become settlers in heaven. Until then we must continue to adjust to the Dove and the surprising and unpredictable ways God challenges our faith.

My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek. —Psalm 27:8

One reason God hides His face is because He wants you to go looking for Him. By seeing what your reaction is when He hides His face, He can test your earnestness to seek Him.

Will you recognize the difference between the flow of your natural giftings and the flow of God’s special presence? Will you discern the difference between a gift of the Spirit—which is irrevocable—and the intimacy that kindles holy fire?

Are you sensitive to the Dove? Will the counterfeit do? Never! It is only a matter of time until you notice what you have lost when Jesus stays behind. When you see your loss, you must seek His face in repentance. But it’s not enough merely to admit you’ve been wrong. That is only the beginning.

You must go looking for Jesus. It will take you outside your comfort zone to places you’ve never been. Remember that you can step out of a flowing stream, but you can never step back in at the same place. The flow moves on.

Familiar theology, liturgy, clichés, or styles of worship can be very common comfort zones. You may begin to look for Christ in your comfort zones, but what if He isn’t there? Will you admit to this, too?

Seeking the face of the Lord is to settle for nothing but Him. It may require examining teaching you had previously dismissed out of hand. It may mean associating with people you once said you’d have nothing to do with. It may be singing choruses you previously felt were meaningless to you.

Once God has succeeded in getting your attention, you will have to repent and seek God’s face without giving up until you find Him. The journey back may require a lot of humbling, sheer embarrassment.

Seeking God’s face means settling for nothing but the special presence of God—and not stopping until you know you have found Him wherever He is.

Excerpt from The Sensitivity of the Spirit (Charisma House, 2002).

Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. —James 5:14-15

Jesus cared about the sick. One of the first things said about Jesus in the New Testament is His care for the afflicted: “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people” (Matt. 4:23). The sick came to Him, and healing them was much of His ministry. Even after He went to heaven, the ministry of healing continued. It is even mentioned in the very last chapter of the Book of Acts that the apostle Paul healed people on the island called Malta. The sick people came to him; he placed his hands on them and healed them, and everybody on the island was cured (Acts 28:9).

James says, “Is any of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him. … If he has sinned, he will be forgiven” (James 5:14-15). Why did James say that? Because the healing ministry of Jesus was not over. God cares about our well-being—spirit, soul, and body. He still wants to heal you.

Sometimes sin and suffering are related. Sometimes they are so related that James actually said if one has sinned (meaning that if the illness they are praying for is traceable to sin), when the prayer of faith is offered, then the one who is healed will also have this sin forgiven. So James is showing the possibility of the connection with sin. This is why he says if one has sinned, he will be forgiven. And that’s a big if, because it is implying that sin may not be the cause of illness at all. Do not let the devil accuse you or make you believe your illness is because of sin. However, if you have valid suspicion that it is, then, before God, ask for the elders of your church to pray for you.

Excerpted from The Thorn in the Flesh (Charisma House, 2004).

Then Hezekiah repented of the pride of his heart, as did the people of Jerusalem; therefore the Lord’s wrath did not come upon them during the days of Hezekiah. —2 Chronicles 32:26

The journey back to where you find the presence of Jesus involves passing through some important stages, one of which is repentance. In part, repentance means admitting you were wrong. Unfortunately, you seldom come to the place of saying “I was wrong” until you are forced to do so. The last thing on earth a person wants to do is admit to being wrong. The natural inclination in all of us is to defend where we are and why. Unless we are forced out of our comfort zone, we will stay in it.

God has to get your attention before you will repent, and He gets it by making you see what you have lost. As long as you can feel you haven’t really lost His special presence, you are going to carry on. There are two ways by which you are called to repentance.

1.    You admit God’s special presence is gone. Rather than continue as though nothing happened, you repent.

2.    You get caught—exposed. Someone discovers the truth. Someone “spills the beans.” Public shame results.

If you do not admit that God’s special presence is gone and repent, God resorts to the second plan—public exposure. When a person is forced to repent because of public exposure, the depth of the repentance remains an open question.

To be granted repentance is a gracious mercy of God. As the Word teaches us, we are “changed … from glory to glory” as a result of repentance (2 Cor. 3:18, KJV). When a renewed measure of His presence reveals your sin and leads to your forgiveness and greater ability to do God’s will … you have received insight. The worst thing that can happen to a man or woman is to become stone deaf to the Holy Spirit, losing all sensitivity to His voice.

The way back is the way of repentance. It is admitting that you have lost the special presence of God and have been wrong in your thinking and presumption.

Excerpted from The Sensitivity of the Spirit (Charisma House, 2002).

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. —Acts 2:42

If we follow His impulse, the Holy Spirit will always lead us to pray. Consequently, when the Spirit is absent, we will find excuses not to pray: “God understands. He knows I love Him. But I’m tired … I’m so busy … It’s just not convenient now.” When the Spirit is absent, our excuses always seem right, but in the presence of the Spirit our excuses fade away.

All prayer comes from the Spirit—be it disciplined prayer or spontaneous prayer.

We pray spontaneously, both privately and with other Christians, when we are suddenly aware of a great need in the world or the church. God often uses something external to bring the church to her knees. We ought to see it as the kindness of God when He allows trouble to drive us to prayer. In our individual lives, family tension, financial worries, or illness will do it.

We also pray spontaneously when there is an overwhelming inner pressure from the Spirit resulting in a vivid awareness of the Spirit’s presence. When this happens within the church, people come from everywhere to be there.

What are the characteristics of this kind of spontaneous impulse to pray? There are four: time becomes unimportant; there is a caring for others (for example, in Acts 2:44); there is clear guidance; and there is unity (Acts 2:46).

The result of all of this is worship. We need to understand that worship is not just singing hymns, nor even consciously adoring God. Some people think that worship is limited to the moment in which one is saying, “God, I worship You.” But this is a wrong idea. Worship is any activity that is carried out under the impulse of the Spirit of God. We are also worshiping God when we are praying for others or witnessing to others.

Excerpted from Worshipping God (Hodder & Stoughton, 2004).

Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom. —Song of Solomon 2:15

When these things are present in my life, I have discovered that God’s special presence is absent:

* Self-pity. Feeling sorry for myself always seems right at first, but I should never give in to it if I cherish the presence of the Dove.

* Self-righteousness. This is the identical twin of self-pity. I reflect on my obedience and imagine that God is giving me a little pat on the back.

* Defensiveness. This is not merely being “touchy”; it is the natural instinct to resist any criticisms. It is the opposite of turning the other cheek (Matt. 5:39).

* Seeking a compliment. “Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; someone else, and not your own lips” (Prov. 27:2).

* Listening to gossip.  I am not sure which is worse—telling another “the latest” or listening to it. It is hard not to listen, especially if it is delicious, bad news about someone I find threatening.

* Talking too much. “When words are many, sin is not absent, but he who holds his tongue is wise” (Prov. 10:19). John Wesley often said that for every hour we spend talking, we should spend two hours in prayer!

* Rushing. Getting in a hurry almost always moves me ahead of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not in a hurry.

* Pointing the finger. “Do not judge, or you too will be judged” (Matt. 7:1). Pointing the finger in judgment invariably includes keeping a record of wrongs—which the Bible advises us not to do (1 Cor. 13:5). Doing so will result in the departure of the Spirit’s special presence.

When I come to terms honestly with the absence of God’s special presence, I am more likely to be in a  position to find Him.

Excerpted from The Sensitivity of the Spirit (Charisma House, 2002).