Are You Camped Around the Presence?

I saw a short clip from Bill Johnson and Bethel Church (Redding, California) lately that rocked my world. It gave me words for a question that had been deeply on my mind, that I did not previously know how to put into words.

I included the clip below. It’s very short. Please watch it. It’s a video of a supernatural manifestation that occurred in one of their services. A glory cloud appeared in the air in their building, and what appears to be rain fell–indoors–out of nowhere. It’s pretty neat.

And the question it gave me words to is this:

“Is my life camped around the Presence? Is yours?”

This is a portion of what Bill Johnson says in the clip:

“The church has been gathering together for decades around a sermon. Israel camped around the Presence. And we’ve known that there are some dramatic shifts that are going to take place in how we do life; how we do church. The Presence of God is the greatest gift we have. And to shut everything else down because of that is absolutely worth it to me. It’s the joy of our heart to celebrate Him personally; the Lord Jesus Christ, for whatever reason, decides to show up. … and so what’s happening tonight is the church is camping around the Presence. We may not have an idea, a clue what we’re doing. We certainly don’t know what to do next. But finally, the main thing has become the main thing.”

Wow. Is the Main Thing (the Presence of God) truly the main thing in my life? Is it the main thing in yours?

Are we camped around the Presence?

Or are we camped around something else?

I urge you to watch it and consider your own life as I am considering mine. Go to the Lord and cry out for a change of heart, as I am. Even if we are already passionate about the Presence, we can get more passionate. As Bill Johnson says in his series on “Hosting the Presence,” we can have the measure of God’s Presence that we are willing to give our lives to protect!

2 Comments

  1. MarYvonne says:

    Wow this is AWESOME!!

    1. Amen. I love the thought of camping around His presence! Nothing could ever be greater. 🙂 Thanks for reading!

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