Worship And The Coming Rains

Well, we're in the middle of a series called Beyond Higher Dimensions of Worship.

Pastor Robert's taking the weekend off.

Turn to Job 36 and Acts 16.

Two weeks ago, when I began to think about this message and begin to ask the Lord what to speak on, I began to pray for rain this weekend.

I prayed, wrote it in my journal two weeks ago before the forecast came out.

I said, Lord, I want a slow, gentle rain on Saturday night and Sunday morning.

And so as the forecast began to come out, you know, and then they had a 30% chance of rain, then as it got closer to the weekend, I said, Lord, I really do want rain on Saturday night, and I want it all day Sunday.

I just want a slow, gentle rain.

Now there's a couple of reasons why I prayed for that.

One is that we need rain.

Do you agree that we need some rain?

I mean, the the lakes are drying up and we need rain, the grass needs rain.

We all need rain.

But after this message today, I believe you're going to understand why that I prayed for rain.

This rain that we're having today is good for us in the natural, but I believe you're going to see it in a spiritual sense today.

The title of my message is Worship and the Coming Rains.

Worship and the Coming Rains.

Now, we all know how much we need rain.

Everything on Earth depends on rain.

The animals, the plants, uh, everything, the whole biology of earth, everything that is living on the earth depends on rain.

The human body is made up of 80% water.

I think mine's made up of 40% diet coat, 40% water, and the rest of it's slim gems or something.

But that's why, you know, we're all dependent on water.

And we need water.

We need rain.

But there is a direct correlation in Scripture, and I'm going to show this to you in just a minute.

There's a direct correlation in Scripture to the way rain is formed in the universe, in the atmosphere, and what happens when we worship.

I want to say that one more time, because I'm about to go into a science explanation, and you're going to think that you're in the eighth-grade science class.

I don't want you to check out on me, okay?

There is a direct correlation in Scripture, and I'm going to show this to you, about worship and what happens with the natural formation of rain.

Okay?

That's why I prayed for rain this weekend because I want you to catch this.

I asked God, Lord, would you give me a sign for all of us to experience that this rain is from you, that it's more than just natural rain, that it's spiritual rain that you want to give us in our lives.

So I'm about to show you a video, a quick little video, and explain to you how rain is formed, okay?

Now, don't check out on me.

Okay?

Don't get the glazed over science class look that you all had in eighth grade.

Okay?

Let me show you this just for a minute.

Now, rain is formed.

Make this very simple.

Rain is formed when the heat of the sun shines down upon a large body of water like the ocean.

The sun shines down over the water, the water heats up and turns into vapors.

These vapors rise into the atmosphere, collect around dust particles, form into clouds, and then the winds begin to blow these clouds out across land, they cool off, and the rain falls to the ground.

This rain now forms into puddles, ends up back into rivers, and eventually back out into the oceans where the process starts all over again.

Now, don't check out on me, okay?

I see some of this eighth-grade look on your face.

All right, look at me.

One more time.

The sun heats the water.

The water is turned to vapor because of the heat, rises into the atmosphere, forms into clouds, moves out across land.

The rain falls down when it cools off.

Rain, sleet, or snow, however it falls.

It ends back up into rivers, back into the oceans, and the cycle starts all over again.

Okay?

Now, I want to show this to you in Scripture.

I ask you to turn to Job chapter 36.

Job 36 · chapter mention

Turn there now in your Bible, Job 36, verse 26, and listen to what Job and how he describes the majesty of God.

Job 36:26

He's worshiping God as he writes this, as he says this, and listen to how he explains it.

Says, look, God is exalted beyond what we can understand.

That's verse 26.

His years are without number.

He draws up the water vapor and then distills it into rain.

And the rain pours down from the clouds, and everyone benefits.

Now he's describing how God is in control, how God really does want to bless us, how God wants to pour his rain out upon the land.

But he's talking more than just about natural rain.

He's talking about the rain of God's presence, the spiritual rain that he also wishes to release upon the earth.

This is throughout scripture.

I'm just not just picking out one or two scriptures.

It's also in Amos chapter 9.

Amos 9 · chapter mention

I didn't ask you to turn there because it takes most people between eight to twelve minutes to find Amos.

So I'm going to read this to you, okay?

Amos chapter 9, verse 6.

Amos 9:6

The upper stories of the Lord's home are in the heavens, while its foundation is on the earth.

He draws up water from the oceans and pours it down as rain on the land.

The Lord is his name.

That's just those two places.

And there's another place.

The whole chapter, Isaiah 55, the entire chapter talks about the rain, the moisture, the water of God, and how it's a blessing to us.

And I'll give that to you as extra credit, assignment.

If you'll read Isaiah 55 this afternoon or this week, I promise you that when you read Isaiah 55, after hearing this message, you're going to see that passage, that chapter, in a totally different light.

Now, the reason that rain happens is for one reason and one reason only.

It's because the water responds to the heat of the sun.

If the water didn't respond to the heat of the sun, then the entire process would come to a screeching halt.

But the fact that the water changes, the water responds to the heat of the sun starts this process.

I want you to think along with me.

And remember, I'm trying to parallel what happens in the natural with the formation of rain and what happens in the spiritual when we worship.

So if water chose not to respond, if water chose not to change, then the rains would never happen.

But because water is one of the most responsive elements on the earth, it can be ice, it can be steam, it can be uh it can be liquid, solid, gas.

Water can take on lots of shapes, different forms.

It's very responsive.

The fact that it's responsive is what creates the rain cycle.

The fact that you respond in worship is what creates this cycle of rain that God wants to release in your life.

If you respond, if you choose to respond in worship, if you choose to respond to God in worship, God then wishes to build some rain clouds over your life.

Not storm clouds, rain clouds.

I asked the Lord this weekend not for storms.

I said, Lord, I don't want any storms.

I want rain.

Slow, gentle, penetrating rains.

That's what we're going to get today.

Old afternoon.

It's going to be a great afternoon to do nothing.

But just look out your window and watch it rain.

I'm sorry if you had picnics planned or outdoor birthday parties.

I'm sorry, don't send me any emails.

But God's looking for someone on the earth right now who'll respond to him.

Because he wants to pour some rain out upon his people.

But it's dependent upon us and whether or not we will respond to him.

There are a couple of questions that I have about worship.

And I've grown up in worship environments.

I've grown up in churches where we had expressive worship.

This is not new to me.

I enjoy it.

But I've had questions all of my life, and maybe you have the same questions that I have.

What really happens when we worship?

In other words, when I worship, is there some kind of atmospheric change that happens?

Is there what happens in heaven?

What happens in me?

And then I have another question.

What does God do while I'm worshiping?

Does he somehow become engaged with me?

Is it just his Holy Spirit?

Or is it all of God?

I just have these theological questions.

What does God do when I worship?

And what really happens when I worship?

So those are really, really deep questions, but I'm going to try to answer parts of each of those questions today, okay?

Here's the first question.

What happens when we worship?

Here's what I believe, one of the things that happens.

God is pursuing us.

God is pursuing you today, right now.

God is pursuing me right now.

God is in pursuit of you and I.

For most of us, all of us, have an elaborate story, a great story, of how God captured us when we were in darkness.

You know, when we were lost.

All of us have a story.

If you're a believer today, you have a story and we call it a church word, is testimony.

I have my testimony.

But all a testimony is is a story.

All of us in this room have a story of how God went to elaborate measures to pursue us when we were lost.

Do you agree?

I mean, he probably put a lot of people in your path.

He put family members in your path.

He had people praying for you.

You had chance encounters, maybe, you had supernatural encounters, maybe.

But all of us have a story of how God pursued us when we were lost.

For me, the final pursuit, I was in my pickup on a Saturday night driving through the back roads of Louisiana, and the Lord literally visited me in my truck on the way home and captured my heart for the last and final time.

Caught me, got me, and I surrendered my life to him when I got home.

I knelt beside my bed.

That's the story of God's pursuit while I was lost.

Most of us, if we were honest though, believe that somehow God stops pursuing us once we're found.

But he doesn't.

You see, religion teaches us, if you have fallen into the trap of religion, which is a bad trap to fall into, religion teaches us that God is very distant, difficult to find, and that encounters with him are rare.

That maybe a few people will have encounters with God, but not us.

Not the common people.

Maybe a few saints, a few big pastors maybe will have encounters with God, but religion teaches us that God is distant or difficult to find, and that encounters with him are very rare.

Grace teaches us that I am his bride, that he is pursuing me.

And that encounters with him are very frequent.

That's what grace teaches me.

Grace teaches me that my behavior does not keep God away, that he still pursues me when I'm good or when I'm bad.

When I've been a good boy or a bad boy, God's still pursuing me because I've never stopped being his bride.

That God still pursues me after I am found as much as he did when I was lost.

Now, in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, Paul is writing a letter to a group of people that he used to, he knows.

2 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

He spent some time with them.

He lived among them for a long time at Corinth, planted a church there, then left, wrote some letters back to them.

So he knew these people.

Let me ask you a question.

Before we read the scripture, I'm asking you maybe because you've already read it.

When Paul wrote the letter to the church that met at Corinth, was he writing the letter to believers or unbelievers?

Believers, right?

He's writing them to people who've already said yes to Jesus.

But Paul is concerned because many of the people in Corinth have turned their hearts away from the original teachings that Paul gave them.

In fact, he says later in chapter 11, you're believing a different spirit than the one you first believed, you're following a different Jesus than the one you first knew.

And he's concerned that they have somehow fallen away from their pure and simple devotion to Christ.

Now listen to what Paul says, because this is an amazing concept that you have to catch.

In verse 2 of 2 Corinthians 11, Paul says, I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God Himself.

Let me ask you a question.

Can God be jealous?

Is God jealous when our hearts turn away from Him and look to other things?

Is God jealous when we worship something besides Him?

Absolutely, He's jealous.

That's what Paul says.

And Paul says, I am now jealous with the same jealousy that God is, is jealous with you.

Now keep reading.

For I promised you as a pure bride to one husband, Christ.

Now Paul is pursuing these believers because God is pursuing these believers.

Now I want us to fast forward now to 2006 at the church that meets at Gateway.

Let's say that Paul was our apostle and was writing a letter back to the church that meets at Gateway, 2nd Gateway chapter 11.

And he says, I'm jealous for you.

With the jealousy of God Himself.

For I promised the church that meets at Gateway as a pure bride to one husband, Christ.

I'm pursuing you.

I'm chasing you down.

I'm not going to let your heart turn towards something that's not going to be good for you.

I am going to pursue you after you've been found.

I have a friend, and he told me to keep his name anonymous because once I tell the story, if you knew who he was, every man in this room is going to not like him at all.

The way he pursued his wife while they were dating is legendary among a few of us that know the story.

Sickening, actually.

He was in his late 30s.

She was in her late 30s.

She had never been married.

She had waited all her life for the, you know, her knight in shining armor.

And then they both felt like God had brought their lives together.

And so on their, this is for their first date.

Okay?

For their first date, he interviewed all of her friends and found out what foods were her favorites.

The most expensive foods that she liked.

The cheeses, the pattes, some things that she really, really liked.

And he went out and filled this big picnic basket full of all of her favorite, most expensive foods.

Then he found out that her favorite, most, most favorite flower was orchids, and he went and bought a really expensive bouquet of orchids to take with him on a picnic because she loved the outdoors.

And she had this one special place in the woods of Missouri that she would go away and spend a lot of afternoons by herself.

He found out that that was her special place, took her there with the picnic basket full of her favorite food, the basket, the bouquet of orchids, to, and for a picnic.

It gets worse, though, okay?

I know guys are getting elbows in the ribs right now.

Listen, my first date with Pam was El Chico in some Tom Cruise movie.

And I don't even know what the movie was.

It was with a fighter jet guy, you know, when he was, what was that?

Yeah, that one.

Oh, yeah, that one.

So I'm listening to Reed's first date, and Pam's sitting there going, You are you are so in trouble.

Bad trouble.

Reason.

Yeah, Rees in trouble.

Yeah, that's a guy.

This is his name.

I told him, I said, now if this gets bad, you won't tell him what your name is.

Alright, so not only that, but he found out that she liked poetry from Robert Burns, the famous Scottish poet.

Shake your head and you look real intelligent, like you know who that guy is.

Yeah.

So he found an original leather-bound book of poetry that was printed in the 1800s.

He found it at the store, paid several hundred dollars for it, had it wrapped in a leather bow, but before that he read it beforehand, picked out ten or twelve of the best love poems that he wrote.

This is their first date.

Took it, opened it up to her, and read ten or twelve poems throughout the date.

And I said, that's great, Reed.

That's a great first date.

So what'd you do on the second date?

Well, he tells me, and it gets better and better and better.

I went, my read! We can't tell this story ever.

But I did.

Let me ask you a question.

What are the chances if a man's pursuing a woman like that with all of his heart, using all of his resources to pursue her?

What's the chances of her saying no to the marriage?

I mean, she really didn't have a choice.

She had to marry the guy.

And so she does.

And the pursuit has continued like that.

Their marriage is, that's their whole marriage, is some of these pursuits.

He pursues her.

See, when a man pursues a woman like that, the chances of him just stopping the pursuit at the wedding night and no longer dating her or caring about her slim the nun, actually.

When a man's heart has turned toward a woman like that, to that degree, the chances of his pursuit continuing after the wedding are really good.

And that's true about their marriage.

It's also true about the man chasing you right now.

He went to elaborate measures to get you.

Send his son.

Send his Holy Spirit.

He went to elaborate measures to get you.

And his pursuit has not stopped.

He's going to elaborate measures today to pursue you.

I said, Lord, I want you to show us the elaborate measures that you want to go to by sending us rain on the day that I share this message.

Because I want them to catch the idea that you would go to elaborate measures to pursue them and to show them that you are pursuing them.

Now there's a scripture that I'm going to read to you that's probably on a lot of your calendars or coffee mugs or somewhere, bumper stickers.

But it's going to take on a different meaning now because if you know God's pursuing you.

2 Chronicles 16, 9 says, the eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him.

So the eyes of the Lord searching the whole earth, is he looking for just unbelievers here in this scripture?

It sounds like to me that in this scripture that he's looking for believers.

Because it says that he's looking for people whose hearts are fully committed to him.

Does that sound like a believer to you?

And it says that his eyes are roaming throughout the earth, and if he finds anyone whose heart is fully committed to him, then his mission becomes very simple.

I'm going to them and I'm going to strengthen them for their day.

I'm going to go to them and I'm going to give them the rain that they need.

I'm going to strengthen them.

I'm going to come to them.

I'm going to pursue them.

God is pursuing you when you worship.

The way the sun pursues the water, he is pursuing you this morning.

He's looking for someone who'll turn their face toward him.

Let me ask you a question.

If God is pursuing us, and we begin to pursue him, because I don't want to ignore the vast number of scriptures that tell us that we are to pursue God.

We are to ask and to seek and to knock.

We are to chase.

We are to pursue.

We are to run after God.

We are to seek his face while he may be found.

It's a vast number of scriptures that tell us that we are to pursue God.

But there is an equal number of scriptures that tell us that God is pursuing us.

If not more.

So if God is pursuing us coming this way, and we turn around and begin to pursue God, what are the chances of a divine encounter?

That's why, when you come into an environment that you're ready to worship in, privately, corporately, wherever you worship, that's why you feel his presence and know his presence right away.

Because he's not hard to find.

He's not difficult to find if he is pursuing you.

And you're pursuing him.

I'm pursuing him, he's pursuing me.

That's why we have encounters with him.

Will you say, well, Pastor Brady, aren't we supposed to walk by faith and not by feelings?

Yes, that's true.

But if he didn't want me to feel his presence, he shouldn't have given me feelings.

Here's the faith that I have.

When I worship him, I will feel him.

That's the faith.

I have faith to believe that when I worship the Lord, I will feel and know his presence.

I have faith to believe that when I want to encounter his presence, that he also wants to encounter me.

That he will come and meet with me every time.

I cannot think of one time when my heart really was chasing after the Lord that I did not encounter him.

And I know that all of us have stories of going through a dry season in our life.

And there have been times when I've gone through a dry season, but I've never felt like that I could not encounter God even in the dry season.

I had faith to believe, and I still have faith to believe, that God wants to have an encounter with me as much as I want to have one with Him.

So here's the second question.

How does God then respond?

When we choose to turn and pursue him, what happens?

How does God respond to our worship?

Here's what I believe happens: our response to God brings the rain.

Now, in Acts chapter 16, there's a great story of Paul and Silas.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

Paul and Silas are going through this city, preaching the gospel, trying to start a church, and a young girl is following behind them throughout the day, yelling things like this.

Listen to these men.

They have the words that lead to eternal life.

Listen to these men.

Hey, God, come over here.

Listen to Paul and Silas.

They have a great message.

It sounded like she was trying to help them.

But the fact that she was a demonized sorcerer actually was doing more harm for Paul and Silas than good, because if she was going to endorse them, it would actually discredit them in the town.

And because she had this special demonic ability to read people's palms or to tell them their future, a group of men had hired her, set her up in like a business, and she would read people's fortunes and make a lot of money for her business owners, the men that were hiring her.

And so Paul got tired of her yelling after him, and one day he turns around and says, Come out of her in the name of Jesus.

And this demonic spirits, these spirits that were controlling her, left her immediately.

And made her business owners really mad.

So they began to immediately falsely accuse Paul and Silas of some heresy and begin to come up with some false charges against them.

A mob forms in the city right away.

They grab Paul and Silas, take them to a public location, strip their clothes off of them, and take these wooden rods of three to five feet in length, and they beat Paul and Silas within an inch of their life.

Literally, they almost beat them to death in the public square.

And then they drug them into the dungeon, but not to the outer part of the dungeon.

This passage in Acts 16 says that they drug them to the inner dungeon and put heavy chains upon their legs.

The inner dungeon is where you put condemned criminals.

There was no light.

The sanitation was worse there.

It was the coldest, darkest place in the prison.

And it's where they put condemned criminals, those who were about to be executed.

So they take Paul and Silas to the inner part of the dungeon and they strap them there together.

And then when we're about to read, it fast forwards to midnight.

Let me ask you a question.

Had it been a good day or had it been a bad day?

A mob forms.

You're falsely accused.

You're stripped publicly.

You're beaten within an inch of your life.

You're drugged to the worst part of the dungeon, and you have heavy chains placed on your legs.

Is that a good day?

Or a bad day?

That's not to bless life.

And so here we are, we fast forward now to midnight.

Acts chapter 16, verse 25 says, around midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.

Acts 16:25

And this is an amazing part of the scripture.

And the other prisoners were listening.

Suddenly there was a great earthquake, and the prison was shaken to its foundations.

All the doors flew open, and the chains of every prisoner fell off.

The jailer woke up to see the prison doors wide open.

His worst nightmare.

Every jailer in town goes to sleep at night and they have this same dream of all the doors flying open and all the chains falling off.

He wakes up and it's real, it's not a dream.

He assumed the prisoners had escaped.

So he drew his sword to kill himself because, you know, the reason he was going to do that is because the penalty for letting the prisoners escape was going to be death anyway, so he wanted to go ahead and get it over with himself.

But Paul shouted to him, don't do it.

We're all here.

Let me ask you a question.

Why did these condemned prisoners not take the opportunity to escape that jail cell that night?

All the doors flew open.

Their chains fell off.

It does not say in Scripture, we cannot read something into Scripture that's not there.

It does not say that an angel from heaven kept them there.

It did not say that God made them stay.

It just says that they all stayed.

Why?

Why did all these prisoners suddenly want to hang around the dungeon?

I'll tell you why.

Because in a moment, the worst place on earth became the best place on earth because God's presence came into the prison.

And they had never, ever experienced anything like this.

Why would you want to leave this dungeon now?

I've never encountered God.

God has come.

God has visited us here in the dungeon.

And I don't care if the doors fly open, and I don't care if my chains fall off.

I'm not leaving this jail cell because something's happening here, and I want to stay and witness what happens next.

That's why I believe they didn't escape.

That's why I believe they stayed.

And we don't read in verse 25 that Paul and Silas were praying prayers like this.

Lord, we need another job.

Lord, call down fire upon these people for beating us.

They weren't praying any of those prayers.

Paul and Silas believed that they were the luckiest two men on the earth that night.

You know why they felt they were the luckiest two men on earth?

Because they had been counted honored.

They were honored.

They'd been counted it as an honor to suffer for Christ that day.

They write about it later on.

Paul writes about this throughout the New Testament.

I counted it an honor to suffer for Christ because he suffered for me.

Can you believe that Paul, the worst of all Christians, a Pharisee who used to kill believers, that God somehow would find it in his grace and mercy to give me the opportunity to suffer for him the way he suffered for me.

Man, am I the luckiest man on earth?

I'm the most blessed man on earth.

I was able today to suffer publicly for Jesus, the way he suffered publicly for me.

It's an amazing mindset.

Very few people I've ever met on the earth have that kind of mindset.

That they count it an honor to be persecuted, an honor to suffer for Christ.

You see, most of us have a college student mentality.

How many of you have ever taken your child, or maybe you have been, maybe your parents took you to college, dropped you off there, helped you move into a dorm, you know, and then you went out in the parking lot and cried, hugged each other, drove off, mom and dad cried all the way home.

As soon as you were out of sight, the kids jumping up and down, going, yeah.

How many of you have ever been dropped off at college like that?

Or how many of you have ever dropped your child off at college like that?

Raise your hand.

A lot of tearful hands going up.

Let me ask you, let me uh what would happen if you dropped your child off at college, you'd sacrificed, paid for their school, put them in a place where they could really succeed, done everything you could to get them in a good school.

And you dropped them off in August, knowing, you know, that Thanksgiving was coming up, then Christmas, and surely that they would come home for a visit, but Thanksgiving rolls around, they don't come home.

Christmas rolls around and says, well, this is a four-week break, you know, they'll come home for Christmas, they don't come home.

Spring break, the following summer.

But you get letters every week.

And sometimes you get a couple times, two or three letters a week.

Here's what every letter says.

Two or three times a week, you get these letters in the mail, and each of the letters says the same thing.

Dear mom and dad, having a great time.

Please send more money.

But no need to visit.

I wonder how many times that we come before the Lord and say, Lord, I got a lot of stuff here I need you to take care of.

I need some money.

I need another job.

I need you to help these people.

But no need to visit.

I really don't need you to visit, and I don't really need to visit you, but I need some you to take care of some stuff for me.

I need you to do some things for me, Lord.

But no need to visit.

See, Paul and Silas, they didn't ask the Lord to change their circumstances.

Although they had every right to have prayed.

I'm sure they were praying for their bodies to be healed.

They were beaten.

In fact, it says later the jailer took them out of jail and went and put medicine on their wounds.

They were had open wounds in their back.

They could have bled to death that night in the jail.

In fact, most people who were beaten like that ended up dying in the prison because of lack of attention.

Paul and Silas were saying, Lord, if nothing else happens tonight, if this is our last night on earth, and if our life doesn't get any better than it gets right now, Lord, could you just come and visit tonight?

And boy, did the Lord come and visit.

We don't hear Paul and Silas talking about asking for a lot of needs here.

He says they were praying and they were singing and worshiping.

And God came and visited.

I know what the Bible says about meeting our needs.

And God wants to meet every one of your needs.

Every time we stand up here at the end of the service, we say, if there's any need that you have in your life, come forward.

We'll stay here as long as we need to to pray for your needs to be met.

And we mean that.

And we're going to do that today.

But I want to do something different today than just pray for our needs.

I want us to pray for a visit.

I want us to believe today, maybe for the first time, that God really is pursuing us.

And that if we'll respond to his pursuit and simply ask him to come and visit, that he'll come today and visit us.

Last night in both services, we had a holy moment at the end of every service.

God really did come last night and visit.

I mean, it was unbelievable.

And it's about to happen here this morning because I believe your heart is like mine.

I want him to visit.

And it's okay today.

Listen, after we pray this prayer, if you have a need, ask him to meet your needs.

I'm a dad.

And I had a great dad.

And my dad, if he knew of a need that I had that he could meet, he was always willing to meet my needs.

He always helped me with things, always gave me money and helped me along the way growing up.

I gave my kids a new bike, both of them a new bike.

Their birthdays were kind of close together, and I bought them both a brand new bike this weekend.

It was so much fun giving at, surprising your kids with a new bike.

That's fun.

Every parent knows the joy of that, probably.

But you know what the most fun is for me as a dad, and my wife has as a mom?

Is when our kids just like to hang out with us.

When they just crawl up in our lap for no reason and just hang out.

They're still small enough, they like to do that.

I like to hang out, get under my arm.

Sitting on the couch, maybe watching a ballgame or something.

My little girl, I'll feel her come up come up under my arm and just hang out.

She just likes that.

She's not asking me for anything.

Sure is fun.

To give her stuff.

Don't you agree?

Are y'all catching this today?

Can I pray for you right now?

We just close your eyes and ask the Lord to visit.

You see, the rain that I'm trying to describe today is more than just material blessings.

Although God wants to meet your material needs, He wants to meet your physical needs.

I'll tell you what God really wants to do this morning.

He wants to come and meet with every one of you individually.

And if you'll just close your eyes just for a moment and say, Lord, say one thing.

Here's one thing I want you to pray.

Lord, would you come now and visit?

Lord, come right now and visit me.

And if you want to go one step further, say, Lord, not only come and visit, would you come and make your holy habitation in my heart?

Take up a permanent dwelling with me.

Don't just visit.

Why don't you come and stay for a while?

Lord, in Jesus' name, I pray right now for every person in this room that the rain of your presence would fall upon their life.

Lord, I prophesy over every person in this room that clouds are forming over their lives.

That the rain is about to fall upon their life.

And we know today that the rain is your presence.

And Lord, we know today that your rain and your presence is all we really need.

So, Lord, come right now.

Visit us with your presence.

Visit us with your rain.

Lord, we love you.

Thank you that you're pursuing us.

And we choose today to pursue you.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.