2 Corinthians 4:18 (KJV)

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How are you today? I’m so glad that you’re joining us for our, uh, weekly podcast to to see what god has to say to us and I wanna just tell you I love you, and it’s an honor to be able to minister to you.
I wanna talk to you about something that really deals with, uh, our fellowship with the lord.
And There are so many people that can’t understand why they don’t have a good relationship or a good fellowship with with the lord Jesus.
And, uh, the other day, I just, I was just thinking about this.
And over the years, I’ve learned this principle um, you can’t wing it with god.
The relationship with the lord has to be intentional.
So I I wanna talk to you today about preparing a place where the lord can come.
And this this is the nature of the lord.
And so I wanna take us all the way back to the book of Genesis chapter 2 In verse 7, it says, and the lord god, foreign man of the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life, and man became a living soul and verse 8.
And the lord got planted at Garden eastward in Eden.
And there he put the man whom he had formed.
Um, and then in that guard talks about what the lord did made trees to grow on different things.
But everything that from the very beginning, because relationship with man was gonna be so important to the lord.
Uh, I don’t think that god made us because he was lonely because and that would just say that that god was incomplete.
I think that god made us because he wanted to create a uh, a group of men and women like himself.
But the reason I read this portion of scripture is when you read the story of creation, man’s not created on the 1st day.
god begins to speak. He begins to create.
And for those 1st 5 days, you know, he’s he’s getting the earth ready.
He’s separating the water from from the land and he’s creating the animals and he’s creating life cycles.
And He’s creating the moon and the stars and all of that. What was he doing?
He was preparing a place. for man to be, to to live in.
And then soon as he made man, The Bible says he even went further and he prepared a special place.
He prepared a garden that was made just for man.
And soon as he made man, the Bible says that that god put man in that garden.
And he said, this is yours.
And when you read the scriptures, the fellowship between god and Adam was in that garden.
That was a special place, but it it it wasn’t an afterthought. God didn’t say, okay.
I’ll make man, and then he makes man, and And there’s hardly any environment for a manister by Ben because the lord’s trying to create sun and moon.
No. He said, listen. He said, man is so important to me.
My relationship with him is so important that I want everything to be just right.
I want it to be perfect.
that when I create him and I put him in that environment, he can function.
in the book of 2nd King’s chapter 4. And versate.
And it says, and it fell on the day that Elijah passed the where there was a great woman.
You noticed that he never tells us the word never tells us her name.
It just says she was a great woman.
You don’t have to be famous to be great in the kingdom of god.
And where there was a great woman, and she can strained him.
I mean, she didn’t invite him. She constrained on him. I mean, she leaned on him.
to eat bread. And so it was that his office he passed by and he would turn in thither to eat bread.
And she said her to her husband behold. Now I perceive that this is a holy man of god.
who passes by us continually.
The lord will pass you by but it’s up to you to determine whether he’s gonna stay or not.
And she recognizes that Elijah is a great man of god.
And and when Elijah would would stop to have lunch with her and her husband and he’s sitting in that room, there was something that was just released in the atmosphere.
And, uh, she looked forward to the days that Elijah come because she recognized that there’s something in the atmosphere that happens in my home when this man’s in my house.
And she’s told her husband now, um, the next verse, she said, you know, I proceed that this is a holy man of god, and he’s passing by us continually.
I wonder how many times the Holy Spirit And I think about this in my own life.
How many times has Jesus passed by wanted to have fellowship with Kent Christmas?
and I didn’t have time. I was too busy.
And, uh, the next verse, it says, she’s talked to her husband.
She says, let us make a little chamber.
I crazy on the wall on the side of the house and let us set for him there a bed, a table, and a stool and a candlestick, and it shall be that when he comes to us, that he shall turn in there and rest.
She recognized that this Elijah was a special man of god.
and he created a hunger in her for what he had.
When she got around him, there was something about Elijah said, I need more than a visit.
I want this man to stay all night in our house.
I need what he has, and she told her husband, she said, I don’t want him just to come by every once in a while.
Let’s let’s build a room. What what was she doing?
She said, I’m so hungry for what in him. I’m gonna prepare a place.
The scene, this wasn’t an afterthought. They had one, well, god shows up that great. No.
She said, I am preparing a place because I want him to be able to feel comfortable in this place.
How often has god passed us by, but there was no place.
Jesus said this in the new testament.
He said, you know, the foxes have holes and the birds of the air, I have nests, but he said, I don’t have any place to lay my head.
Oh, babe, you and I creative place, though the world has shunned Jesus.
And there’s no there’s no room for him. He’s rejected of men.
The Bible said that he had no honor in his own house amongst his own kin and his own family.
And in this time and the day that we live in, nobody’s making room for Jesus.
May you and I prepare a place?
We it’s that means that you take time that you put thought into it.
that, uh, you are preparing a place for the lord in Revelation 3 in 20 Jesus said this.
He said, behold, I stand at the door, and I not.
And if any man will open unto me, I will come in and I will sup with him.
When Jesus knocks, on our door.
May we have already in anticipation that he was coming.
May you and I prepare a place that the Holy Spirit feels comfortable.
in John 14th chapter, Jesus, uh, says this.
He says I am going away.
But he said the reason I’m going away, he said, I’m gonna go prepare a place for you so that where I am, you can be also, and he said, and then I will come again and I will get you.
Have you thought about what Jesus doing right now?
I know that he sits on the right hand of the father in heaven But I I I think that’s talking about from the finished aspect of what he did on the earth and at Calvary.
But he said this.
He said, when you can’t see me, he said, you know, what I’m doing?
He said, uh, our relationship is so powerful.
He said it’s so valuable to me, eternally, that he said I’m going back to where you and I eventually will be together.
He said, I don’t want you to come through the pearly gates.
And then at the last moment, I’m trying to figure, oh, I I need to make some preparation.
He said, no. He said, while you’re down here, I don’t know. He said, I am preparing a place.
Well, can you think about that? Jesus right now is in the midst of preparing a place in heaven.
And And he’s thinking of you, and he’s like, you know, I I I know that that she likes this.
And I know that he’ll like that, and he’s setting that in that place.
And then he looks at it and he goes, uh, I really hope they like what I prepared for them.
things that that have to do with the intimacy with Christ always involve preparation.
Remember when the lord, uh, was talking to his disciples and he’s wanting to celebrate Passover.
He just didn’t, you know, they’re walking down the road and him open up, you know, a a a skin and pull out some bread and fish and say, okay, guys.
We’re gonna sit down here and we’re gonna celebrate passover. He said to his disciples.
He said, I need you to go and prepare a place.
And the gospels record this multiple times because what he was doing was so impactful.
It would it was so precious to him.
He said, I need an environment that has created an atmosphere.
that you and I can sit together because I wanna teach you some things.
I wanna tell you some things. I think of John the Baptist.
And when when we think of John the Baptist, we don’t really realize the price that he pay.
You know, he was raised as a Nazirite that meant that even as a boy, he didn’t get to do other things, things that other boys did.
He also was restrained from, participated in the culture that day, whether it was drinking wine or or different things.
And He’s at the age of thirty when god thrust him.
Uh, a lot of theologians believe that that his father Zaccarat died when he was young and that he was, uh, in the wilderness being taught at the age of thirty comes forth in his whole message because he so prophetically understands what’s getting ready to happen.
He was telling me, he said, listen. He said, the Messiah is on his way.
Jesus is coming to you. And he said, this is my message.
Prepare, ye, the way of the lord.
I wonder if, uh, if we were more intentional about preparing for fellowship with the lord.
You know, when when I was a boy, uh, I remember churches weren’t big, but I do remember we had some powerful services.
And I also know this that most people that I remember that were raised in that generation are still serving God.
Uh, we have a tremendous amount of protocols in this day. that we’re believing god for.
But I’m telling you 50 years ago, the church did not have the protocols that it has now.
because, um, I remember, you know, we had church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, uh, young people on Saturday night fell at meeting on Friday night once a month.
But we were intentional about preparing a place for the lord. And and before our services were start.
I remember many, many times for a church at every star that would always be gathered to saints, and we were praying.
I mean, we were praying. We were creating an atmosphere.
We were creating, uh, a place for the lord to show up.
And that’s why god did the tremendous things that he did.
Um, this is why so many Christians struggle in living victorious for god.
You know, say, well, I have a hard time praying. It’s because it’s an afterthought.
Well, you know, if I if I get time, I’ll I’ll spend a little bit or, you know, I’ll do it in my car, you know, I’m just I’m just really busy.
No. You have to take the time and the effort to prepare a place for the lord.
because of the way that I live now. I’m pastoring.
I have the ability to uh, every morning I start my day off, I would take a walk through the woods and and I pray, but the lord knows that that a place that I’ve prepared for him.
I’ve I’ve made sure that that area down there is is, um, a place that I can walk inhibit and and have privacy.
And and but even even years ago when I had to work for a living and was a pipe that earned and all those things.
And, uh, you know, we’re getting up at 5 in the morning and not getting home till 5 at night because it was an hour ride on the van pool and all of that.
when I got home, I still, every night, found a place to pray for 45 minutes to an hour because I understood I cannot survive without the fellowship with the lord.
make sure that you create an atmosphere that allows god to feel it rest because this is nature’s this is god’s nature.
Um, in 1st Corinthians 29, it says I have not seen nor ear hurt neither is entered to the heart of man.
The things that god had prepared for them that love him.
You know, it’s it’s a It’s always disheartening when you you go to see somebody when and you realize they didn’t make preparation for your visit.
I remember, um, more than once evangelizing specifically I remember preaching for a pastor.
And when we got there, there was no preparation. There was no hotel room.
said, oh, man, uh, uh, I thought you’re coming a little later and he they they went.
We stood in the church while they went found a mattress.
um, mattress and do it on the floor in the sunny school room.
What it told me was, uh, you weren’t prepared for us. There was no preparation.
Um, and this is when make room for the lord.
don’t make god feel like he’s an afterthought.
Don’t let your relationship with the lord just be crisis driven.
That the only time that that you ever call on the lord is, um, when you need something.
Because if you don’t prepare a place for you and god to fellowship, then when you need god, you know what you have to do, You have to go to somebody else’s place that they prepare.
And that’s, you know, will you help pray for me, or will you will you pray for me now?
Cause I need god to do something and they’re all tore up.
But they’ve had to go to another person who’s made place for the lord.
It’s you want to make sure that the Holy Spirit feels like this person values me.
And the way you show value to the lord as you let him know. This ain’t an afterthought.
I’ve made a place for you. Jesus He’s standing at the door and knocking.
I wanna be able to open that door and say, come on in. I’ve been expecting you. hallelujah.
I’ve been waiting for you.
And I’m a tell you what, when god feels that way and he’s been invited into your house, and he’s gonna eat with you.
He’s also gonna say, what do you need? How can I bless you?
what’s on your heart because the lord loves to do great things.
I’ll I’ll just give you a a verse in ending Hebrews 11 16.
It says, god had prepared a city for people who are looking for a heavenly country.
As we end the day, I want you to think about this that right now, the lord isn’t waiting till you get there and say, well, you know, let me try to throw something together.
Uh, but right now, he is preparing a place.
He’s making it that it will fit your needs to who you are.
May we prepare a place for the holy ghost?
that when the Holy Spirit shows up, he doesn’t say, well, I’m gonna pass something by or I need to leave but he listen, we’re gonna my wife has a saying that says, we’re gonna treat you so many ways, uh, so many ways that you’re gonna have to like one of them.
I want us to create such an atmosphere in our lives that when god comes, he can’t leave because he’s gonna say, I like what they’ve done.
Well, I hope this has been a help to you. Um, try it. See what happens.
I love you. I see you next week.
God bless For more information about Kent Christmas Ministries International or regeneration Nashville, go to Kent Christmas.org, or regeneration nashville.org.