Developing Our Awareness – Part 2

SPEAKER 01 : 0:01

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, December 18th. God hasn’t left us alone, but are you aware that He is with you? Today, we are reminded to open our eyes and ears and develop our awareness of God’s presence.

SPEAKER 02 : 0:19

Now, when you think about it for a moment, you are aware of lots of things. There are a lot of things going on that you’re unconscious of, but today, right now, you are aware of where you are. What about, in your mind, where is God? Are you aware of His presence? Are you aware that when you awakened, that you were awakened in the presence of God? Will you be aware that you’re driving in the presence of God? That you’ll be laboring all day in the presence of God? And that you’ll be laboring among your fellow laborers in the presence of God? That you’ll come home in the presence of God? That you’ll be with your family in the presence of God in the evening? And whatever you do throughout the night, you’re going to do it in the presence of God. Why? Because there is no better way. to go to bed at night, then they go to bed in the awareness of the Son of God living within you, who’s your friend, your companion, your Savior, your Lord, your Master, your Helper, your Provider, your Healer, you name it. He’s all of that. You wake up in the morning, before I’d get out of bed, thank You, Lord Jesus, for a good night’s rest. Or maybe I didn’t rest so good. Maybe sometimes I can’t sleep or whatever it is for a while. I’m going to get up in the morning and just thank You, Jesus. Thank You that You woke me up this morning. Hallelujah. For the simple reason, we have a relationship. And, listen, He can stop you faster than you can bat your eye if He wants to. Look how long He’s put up with all of us. And you know what He wants most of all? He wants you to be aware that He’s your heavenly Father, that He loves you and that He’s the source of everything in your life that’s good. But if I get too busy? I don’t have time for the Word of God.” Or, I’m distracted by other things in life, and the truth is there are many distractions that we’re not even aware of. Don’t have time to think about our Lord because we are attracted to or distracted by something else. Now, what I’d like for it to do for a moment is to give you a few statements. These are things that are true. You’re living in the awareness of His presence, and the first one is this. He’s continually in your thoughts, your conscious and your subconscious. It doesn’t mean you just think, God, God, God. It means that He’s so real to you. Listen, you don’t have to think. In other words, just that quick, He has your attention. And you don’t have to say, well, I’ll get the Bible and see what the Bible says. I need to call so and so. No. Living in the awareness of His presence means that instantaneously Whatever’s going on, I am, listen, I am conscious of His presence as something He may be doing. And so, if you’re walking and living in His awareness of His presence, that’ll be true. Secondly, you’re continually seeking His guidance. Listen, if you’re living in the awareness of His presence and you have a decision to make, You don’t have to go around asking somebody else. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask for information when necessary. But when you’re living in the awareness of His presence, you know what? You have the ultimate director in your life at that moment to tell you exactly what to do. He may tell you to go to someone else for information or whatever it might be. But living in the awareness of His presence, you are never at a loss for the simple reason that He will direct your life and show you exactly what you should do next. Likewise, you will view Him as a constant companion. And in other words, many people say, where is God? He’s in heaven. Well, is that my relationship to Him? Is that the way I see God? No. God, through the Holy Spirit, is in my heart, in my life, in my conscience, my subconscious. He’s here. And the more aware you are of His presence, it’ll begin to express itself in many ways. You’ll see Him as a constant companion. In other words, you don’t have to go somewhere to pray. You don’t have to go somewhere to confess your sin. Listen, if you’re saved by His grace, He’s living within you. And He’s always there. And remember this, He doesn’t turn a deaf ear to one of His children. So you don’t have to say, oh, I hope God will hear me this morning. What you want to be able to do is to live the kind of relationship with Him that whatever the issue is, you know He’s there. He has the answer. He’s not going to mislead you. What an awesome sense of security we have in knowing we have that kind of relationship with Him. Then, of course, you’re going to have peace in your heart. Listen, when you’re living in the awareness of His presence in your life, no matter what happens, There will be an overwhelming sense of peace that will cover you. Well, because listen, the peacemaker is on the inside, the One who has all power to change your circumstances. He’s within you doing what? Living out His life through you. So, there’s going to be a sense of peace when there are storms. And I think most all of us have been in storms of life where everything around us was stormy and dark, and there didn’t seem to be any hope. But when you set your attention upon Him, all the darkness disappeared. All the insecurities disappeared because, listen, when you are aware that you are in the presence of holy God, you’re in the presence of omnipotence, of absolute indescribable love that has no, it has no circumference, it has no measurements whatsoever. That’s the kind of God He is. And that’s the kind of relationship He wants with every single one of us. There are many people who are saved. who go to church, they’ve been baptized, all the things that have happened to you, but you don’t live in the awareness of His presence. So, what are you living for? Where are you headed? What do you want to accomplish in life? How are you going to get it done? If you’re not walking in His presence and fulfilling His will, then what are you doing? Here’s what’s happening. Time is going by. And you may be accomplishing this or failing at that. But what’s the purpose of it all? The awareness of His presence keeps us focused on where God wants us to go, what He wants us to do, and how He wants us to do it. And He, listen, He’s continually focusing us on the ways in which He operates in our life so that we don’t have to fear. We don’t have to be afraid. We don’t have to be wondering what we’re going to do when the storms come in our life. And we’re going to have a sense of joy in our life and a consciousness of the good things that He’s doing. When you live in the awareness of His presence, everything changes for good, no matter how tough it can be. Because listen, you have holy God, so to speak, on your side in your life. And listen, He is absolutely committed, watch this, He is so committed for not only our salvation, He’s so committed to revealing His will to us. And to God is to discover that will. Look at the cross for a moment. That was the ultimate expression of the ultimate love that could ever be expressed by anybody, that being the case. And I am aware of His presence in my life. I can always look at what’s going on in my life, whatever it is, I know that there is a love that’s beyond my comprehension. There is a love I don’t fully understand. In other words, if He loved me enough to die for me, And He loved me enough to indwell me. And He loved me enough to write my name in the Lamb’s Book of Life. And He loved me enough to seal me forever as a child of God. I don’t want to live without the awareness of His presence. Because every single solitary thing we need, He makes available. What does He want? He wants relationship. The awareness of His presence. Why? Because that intimate awareness just absolutely fulfills every desire that a person can have. And that’s what He wants for us. See, I want you to be aware. That I’m here. I want you to be aware that I love you. I want you to be aware that I’m looking out for you. I’m going to protect you. I’m going to take you through this deep, dark valley, but I want you to be aware. It’s dark. You can’t see two feet in front of you. You don’t know what’s happening, but I want you to be aware of this. You are walking through the darkness in my awesome light. I see all the way to the end, and you’re going to be okay. You know what? Riches can’t give you that. You can’t buy that. Only God by His grace and love and mercy can give you that. And when I think about all the things that come to us as a result of the awareness of His presence, sift all of our decisions through Him, wake up every morning to a brand new day. Listen, a brand new day with the same Jesus who started out with us in the very beginning. And think about this, that the person who indwells you, the Holy Spirit, before you were ever born, He knew all about you. In other words, think about this. God has these awesome goals and He’s going to bring them to pass. And out there somewhere in life, we have to make a choice. Am I going to believe God? Am I going to trust Jesus? Or am I going to do it on my own? And so many people have decided they don’t need God in their life. It is the most, watch this carefully, it is the most foolish. It is the most damaging. It is the most eternal, destructive decision you’ll ever make to decide you’re going to live without God. It’s the worst decision you could possibly make. And you say, I’ll get by. No, you won’t. You cannot get by a God. created you with a purpose and loves you, went to the cross for you, and who has a sense of direction for your life and all the good things that He can provide for your life, when you absolutely, purposely refuse Him, ignore Him, shut Him out, defame Him, you’re making a mistake that’ll cost you your eternity. He wants us to live in the awareness of His awesome loving, joyful, peaceful, providing. You can just get the dictionary out or send them a book and go through all the words that you possibly can and you’ll never be able to fulfill all that He is to us. That’s who He is. And remember this, God’s not dependent upon us. We’re dependent upon Him. Watch this. We don’t have a thing He needs. We need everything He has. To live in the awareness of His presence is to acknowledge who I am really, creation of God. It’s to acknowledge that He knows the best for my life. It’s to acknowledge that He knows what His purpose is. And He is willing to show you if you’ll trust Him, if you’ll surrender your life to Him. He’s not going to let you just hang out in life. He’ll give you a sense of purpose. Why? Because this is what He’s all about. He’s all about not just creating us, but creating us for fellowship. And as we saw in the very beginning in Genesis, let us make man in our own image. Why? So that God could express His love and His power in your life and mine. But if I neglect Him, if I refuse to acknowledge it, then I will pay a price. And so, what happens is when a person begins to get a glimpse of, now what does the awareness of His presence mean in my life? It means that while I’m sitting in church and listening to somebody else’s voice, I’m walking out with the truth of holy God in my mind and heart. It means that I want to walk in such a way that the Holy Spirit has freedom to express to me, in me and through me and for me, the will and purpose and plan of God. I want to be able to walk out and know that the next decision I have to make, He’s going to help me make it. Watch this. Why does He want this relationship? God doesn’t need it. Here’s the reason He wants it. Because He desires to express in you, to you, through you, for you who He is. He desires to express His love for you, His provision, He wants for us, He desires for us because He, listen, He says, let us make man in our image. He didn’t need that, but He desired it. And He created you ultimately, listen, to do what? To reflect Himself. What did Paul say in Romans? He says, God predestined. That means before the time, before the time ever started, God did something. What did He do? He predetermined beforehand that you and I would be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that the very life of Jesus would be evident to other people. And the more you and I walk in the awareness of His presence, the more of who He is is going to be seen in our life. God is everywhere. And so, you and I have the privilege of living every day in the awareness of His presence. When the Spirit of God is able to get to your mind and heart and soul and spirit, and you begin to realize that God, who cannot be fully described and cannot be contained, He’s this awesome God of ours. When you begin to realize that He is your Creator and your heavenly Father, and your joy and your peace and your future and your happiness and your everything, when you begin to be aware of that, your whole life’s going to change. You know why? Because you’ll not be able to think up anything God does not desire to provide for you when you surrender your life to Him. The awareness of His presence. When I’m asleep, I know He’s there. When I’m awake, I know He’s there. When I’m reading the Word, I know He’s there. When you are living in the awareness of His presence, He’s always there. Well, He’s there, He’s here. Whatever you’re thinking, whatever’s going on in your life, He’s there. What He wants is this. It’s almost like He’s saying, I’m here. Just listen to me, I’m here. Look, I’m right here. I’m going to provide whatever’s necessary in your life. He could not give us a greater gift following His Son coming into our life than the privilege of living in the awareness of His presence. It’s all there. Now, you say, well, I’m not a Christian, so what’s that mean to me? It means if you continue to live like you’re living, you’ll stand before God one day and give an account for a wasted life. A life that rejected. Well, look and think about it. That rejected the love of God. Think about this. When you reject Jesus, you reject the Father. And to reject Him, to reject God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, is to reject life. And you reject that which has absolutely no substitute. And my prayer is that you But ask the Lord Jesus Christ to give you a little glimpse of your life, that you’d be willing to confess the sin that He’s going to show you. Ask Him to forgive you, that you don’t deserve it, but that you know that the Bible teaches, because you’ve heard it over and over again, maybe it’s the first time you ever heard it, that He sent Jesus, His Son, into the world primarily for the purpose, not only of revealing God to us in a whole different perspective, but to die and to shed His blood on the cross, which was God’s way of, listen, fulfilling that debt of sin we owe. He paid the price for our sins, His life. And now He forgives you of your sin, writes your name in the Lamb’s Book of Life, you become a child of God. And then you begin this awesome journey that many of us have walked a long time. You can’t win without Him, and you can’t lose with Him. That’s the choice we have. And I pray you’ll make that wise choice, allowing Him to come into your life and begin to start living, really living, for the first time. And Father, how grateful we are for your patience. And I pray that You’ll just sink these simple truths. You can take one thought here and one thought there and vice versa, whatever it might be, and drive them home in different ways to different people’s hearts. But Lord, most of all, to see that You love us and that You desire that we live in the awareness of Your presence, which is a presence of awesome, indescribable love and goodness and mercy and kindness. Thank you for loving us like that. It’s our prayer in Jesus’ name. Amen.

SPEAKER 01 : 18:27

Thank you for listening to part two of Developing Our Awareness. If you’d like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.