Press In

 Since I attended HPU and really got introduced to the ministry of prayer, it has been my passion to study about it, to learn more of it, to voraciously read about it, to practice it, and preach it for others. The more I study and practice the more I've realized I have so much more to learn. 

One of the things God is teaching me now is to press in. Let me see if I can explain. Every one of us knows what it means to pray. To present our petitions to the Lord. We know how to unload our cares and concerns before the Lord. This is common basic entry level Christianity. 

How many know how to press in? What I mean is to lay our own requests aside for the greater and more glorious desire of pressing in to seek God and to know Him more. To yearn for Him more than anything else. To linger longer with Him. To learn the contentedness of sitting before and enjoying Him. Pressing in means saying no to the flesh that wants to bail out with lesser effort. It means shutting out every other distraction in favor of basking in His presence. It means preferring to keep company with God more than the company of any other person. 

You do not always press in quickly. It takes time. It requires focus. It necessitates a hunger for God and eternal things more than temporal things. Pressing in is lacking in the church today by so many. We expect people to worship a God they do not really know. To enthusiastically engage in worship gatherings when they do not know how to press in beyond the distractions other people, the lights, the instruments, the style of the music and the message. Pressing in means going beyond all of that to the very heart of God. To giving Him your undivided attention and love. 

This goes so much deeper than a devotion time in the morning or evening. It goes much much deeper than that. This is a passionate pursuit of pressing in. It is taking prayer to a whole new level. Pressing into His presence means fresh encounters with Him, hearing clear communication from Him and receiving energizing enabling power to serve Him. We need all of that. 

I conclude with these simple questions. Do you take time to press in? Do you even have the desire to do so? O how I pray we all will.