From the Edges – Moving into the Presence – Morning Devotional

From the Edges – Morning Devotions
Pastor Calvin Cook – June 18, 2024
Moving into the Presence –
Scripture focus – Ezekiel 36:24-28 ESV
24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanliness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.28 You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

We have been invited by the God of all things to move in the presence of God and not just for a visit, but for the peace and tranquility that is offered to all who call on the name of Lord for rescue and redemption.

The presence of God is experienced through the Holy Spirit. Remember the words of Jesus, from John 14:26 “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you”

There is just something about being in the presence. Even realistically we are in that presence all the time when we have accepted Jesus as Savior and experienced redemption and forgiveness of sins. When the new has come and the old has passed. Yet, sometimes, even most of the time that presence is missed because of our focus and the things that around us that consume us.

What the presence of God through the Holy Spirit will do is best described in Ezekiel 36 here is what I view as the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit. We will be drawn away from wherever we are to the place that we need to be, within the presence of God. Ezekiel describes this as “bringing us into our own land”. If we look at it within our mindset, it is to bring us from were ever we are living that has caused us distress and pain, from the conditions of a worldly life into the glorious presence of God.

Moving into this presence will give us a new heart, a heart not filled with animosity, strife, jealousy, and pain and instead a heart that not only recognizes God’s presence but allows God through the Holy Spirit a place to live. Through this is promised a heart filled with the Spirit that will change everything. Again just as Jesus promised when he said “the Father will send in my name a Helper, Comforter, Advocate, for you for me for all of us who are ready to receive.

This presence through the Holy Spirit is available, all we have to do is not only recognize it but move into it. To God be the glory !