Overwhelmed With the Presence of the Living God — Denny Kenaston

Hello, this is Brother Denny. Welcome to Charity Ministries. Our desire is that your life would be blessed and changed by this message. This message is not copyrighted and is not to be bought or sold.

You are welcome to make copies for your friends and neighbors. If you would like additional messages, please go to our website for a complete listing at www .charityministries .org. If you would like a catalogue of other sermons, please call 1 -800 -227 -7902 or write to Charity Ministries, 400 West Main Street, Suite 1, AFPA, 17522.

These messages are offered to all without charge by the freewill offerings of God's people. A special thank you to all who support this ministry. Thank you for that enthusiastic singing. Greetings this morning in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the name of the Lord Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the Living God. I trust you had a good night last night. Got a little sleep and a good morning this morning. I feel a bit overwhelmed with my subject as I am walking down the road day by day in preparation.

The Responsibility to Tell the Truth

I want to tell the truth. Amen. Again, I don't want to tell you what you think you ought to hear or what everybody thinks we ought to hear. I want to tell the truth. I have to stand before the Lord someday and He will hold this book up before me for what I have said.

I want to say the right things. So, let's have a prayer and then we'll go on. Let's just bow for prayer. Our God and our Father, you know our hearts as we're here before you this morning. Every one of us, Lord, we joy in the opportunity to sing, to be together with all these men.

Lord, we do count it a privilege that in our day we can be with a whole bunch of men who love you. Who want to do nothing else but be here and seek your face and sit under the ministry of the Word and worship you and sing and confess and repent.

All those things, Lord, holy exercises. I thank you, Father, that I can be here. Oh, Lord, we pray that you would send a comforter down in our midst this morning, God. This doesn't make any sense at all if we just sit around here talking about somebody who is not here.

Fill us with the Holy Ghost this morning, God, please, Father. And minister to us, bear witness to the truth of your Word in our hearts. In Jesus Christ's name, Amen. Well, finishing up from yesterday, we saw yesterday that the terms used in the Scriptures concerning the Holy Ghost are synonymous.

Being Overwhelmed by the Presence of God

That means that God uses several different terms speaking of the same thing. It seems to me that God's people have taken those terms one by one, developed them into different doctrines and points to stand on to try to prove their particular theological understanding of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

But as we go down through the Scriptures and just look at them in simplicity, like our brother Ken shared with us last night, just a simple man, take the Bible and open it up and see what it says. You know, if we take it that way, it seems these terms are synonymous.

So, in light of that, I want to give just a little simple definition here this morning of what I believe God means. If we would take all those verses together and put them together, what I believe God means when He speaks about being endued with power from on high, the Holy Ghost coming upon you, being baptized in the Holy Ghost, being filled with the Holy Ghost, all these terms, what God simply means by that is being overwhelmed with the presence of the living God.

Being overwhelmed with the presence of the living God. And so, if I can use the term that Paul used when he met the disciples at Ephesus, you know, he said to them, have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?

He wasn't asking them a theological question there at Ephesus. He wasn't checking out their theology to see if they understood the doctrine of the Spirit of God, when He comes, how He comes and all that.

He just simply asked them a very frank question. Have you been overwhelmed with the presence of the Holy Ghost since you believed? And so, I just want to give you that question this morning. We're all sitting here this morning.

We're in different places in our Christian lives. We're in different places before the Lord. I just give you that question today. Have you been overwhelmed with the presence of the Holy Ghost since you believed?

I want to give you another question. How long has it been since you were overwhelmed with the presence of the Holy Ghost? These are good questions for us to come to grips with as we are here today. I know there are many confusing things happening in America.

I know that. And they cause people to be afraid and to react and all of those things. But dear brethren, I'm afraid we're going to be shocked when we stand before God. If we go through our lives and never know what it is to be overwhelmed with the presence of a living God, I believe we're going to be shocked when we stand before God and find out all that was available.

All that was bought and paid. I don't want to stand there and say, Lord, I was afraid. You know what the charismatics did. And you know what the barkers did. The ones that bark like dogs. And Lord, you know what the laughing revival did.

And I don't want to stand there and throw all those things in God's face when in reality, God will turn back to me and say, Is it not revealed in my word what I meant? And I know we're concerned about having an emotional experience.

And I'm not here talking about an emotional experience. I'm not wanting everybody to get all worked up in a tizzy and in their emotions and have tingles running down their back. I'm not here to do that.

But listen, brethren, some of us are so afraid of having an emotional experience, we haven't had any experience. Come on! And somehow we've settled ourselves down, living a subnormal Christian life and saying, We have the Spirit.

We have the Spirit. We have the Spirit. Why? Oh, I read the theology books and the theology books say that the Spirit of God is in me. So the Spirit of God is in me. But I ask you this morning, is the living God living inside of you?

And you know He is there. Not because you read it in the Word, but because you sense His awesome presence moving in your heart. This is the life of a Christian, brothers. I was thinking about Wesley a little bit this morning and those 60 men in that all-night prayer meeting, you know, that they had back there in 1727 or 1728, I don't know when it was, but I think they had an experience in that room.

What do you think? I mean, I read the account of it. They fell on their faces in response to the awesomeness of the presence of God. They fell on their faces and shook like leafs in the presence of God.

And they were all filled with the presence of the living God. And Methodism was born. I want to encourage you this morning, God is, in spite of all the confusing things that are going on in this land where we live, which, by the way, don't interpret things by what is going on in this land, but I want to encourage you that God is pouring out His Spirit upon whole churches in other places around this world.

In faraway places. In places where persecution reigns. In places where martyrdom is the norm. In places where people live in poverty and do not hardly have any money. In places where people live where it's filthy and they hardly have any money.

And there's no doctors around to run to. And they don't know what a drugstore is where you can go and buy something and take it to get well. God is pouring out His Spirit in places like that upon His people.

And for this we should earnestly desire the same. We should earnestly desire it. My testimony is this. I refuse. I refuse to settle down into the we have it mode. I refuse to settle down into that mode.

And I grieve over the theological gymnastics that take place in this land of ours as people find ways to explain away their powerless lives. I'm not going to do that. Maybe I'll be unhappy the rest of my life, but I'm not going to do that.

I'm not going to be satisfied. I have read too much. Too much learning has made me mad. It has made me mad. I've read too much. I've read the Acts of the Apostles. And I've seen how God worked in their hearts and their lives.

I've seen the results of the coming of the Spirit of God upon them. And I can't be satisfied with some subnormal experience where I go around dreaming about the fact that I might have a little. I can't be satisfied with that.

I was reading Menno Simons a bit in preparation for these teachings here. And I thought, wow. Yeah, okay, so you don't like Wesley and you're not sure about Charles Finney. Well, brethren, we've got a long way to go to catch up to the anointing that was upon Menno Simons.

Have you checked in on that one lately? Hey, forget about those other fellows. Let's just go after that one for a while. We're so far away from the anointing that rested upon that man, that Anabaptist.

And many of us say we're Anabaptists. I tell you, we're so far from what the Anabaptists were. We've just got the... So, hey, just pursue that one. Lay all the other ones aside. Just pick that one up for a while and sigh and cry before the Lord.

But I've read too much. I've read Asa Mahan and Charles Finney and Andrew Murray and William Law and even some of the old Pentecostals way back, you know, 1900. I refuse to settle down into that mentality.

This is all there is. I refuse that. I am glad for a measure of God's anointing. I think I have a measure. But I'll tell you this. I'm not happy. I am not happy. That's my testimony. And I stand up here on the basis of my hunger, not on the basis of my attainment, and share with you this morning.

I want you to know that. I don't think I should be up here, but I'm up here because I'm hungry. Have you been overwhelmed with the presence of the living God? Let's open our Bibles to Exodus chapter 33.

Moses Seeks the Glory of God

Now we're moving into today's subject. All of that was yesterday's. Moses was overwhelmed with the presence of God. If you want to look at a couple of Old Testament examples, as we keep our focus on the Word and examples in the Word, we come to the Old Testament example of Moses.

Reading in Exodus chapter 33, Moses had quite a discussion with God. He had been up on the mount for 40 days and 40 nights, receiving the Ten Commandments. God had written them on tables of stone. While he was away, the children of Israel made a golden calf, sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

And Moses was sent back by God down off the mount. And there was quite a discussion going on there, and Moses was pleading with God not to forsake his people. And in the middle of that, he makes a request to God, and that's what we want to read in chapter 33 and verse 18.

He, Moses, said, I beseech thee, show me thy glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee, and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

And he said, this is God speaking, Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see me alive. And the Lord said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock, and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover thee with my hand while I pass by, and I will take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shalt not be seen.

That's a beautiful portion of Scripture there, a conversation that Moses is having with God. I don't know about you, but I'll take that. I'll take the hinder parts. God's speaking to Moses, Moses, you want to see my glory, but you don't understand what my glory is.

You don't know how awesome it is. You won't be able to live if you see my glory in all of its fullness face to face. So this is what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to put you in a cleft of a rock and hide you there.

And I'm going to come passing by in all my awesome presence and glory. And when I come by, I'm going to put my hand out there to block so you can't see my glory. And when I get past you and the only hinder parts are left, I'll move my hand away and you can get a glimpse of me as I'm passing by, Moses.

Chapter 34, verse 5 -8,. And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. Now Moses received the revelation of God here. Revelation of God that he had not seen before.

A revelation of the character, the majesty, the holiness, the purity, the righteousness of the character of the living God. And God proclaimed His name to Moses that day. And those weren't words that He proclaimed.

He revealed His holy character to Moses. And the Lord passed by before him, before Moses, and proclaimed. What did He proclaim? The Lord. The Lord God. Merciful Lord God. Lord God, gracious. Lord God, long-suffering.

Lord God, abundant in goodness. Lord God, truth. Lord God, keeping mercy for thousands. Lord God, who forgives iniquity and transgression and sin. Lord God, that will by no means clear the guilty. Lord God, who visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children unto the third and to the fourth generation.

And Moses made haste at this revelation and bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. Moses was overwhelmed with the presence of God that day. And he was never the same. He stayed up in the mouth for 40 days in the presence of God.

That will change your life. Amen? You ever hear of William Duma? How many ever heard of William Duma? No! Only one or two. He was a black preacher from South Africa. A Zulu. A Baptist. A Zulu. But he was anointed with the Holy Ghost.

He went into a cave with his Bible and some water. And he came out 21 days later. A totally different man. He was a powerful man. He was an anointed man. He had a ministry of healing. And a lot of Baptists don't even believe in healing, but he had a ministry of healing.

He was a powerful preacher. Fearless. Nothing bothered him. He went back into that cave every year for 21 days. All the years of his ministry. He went back into that cave with a Bible and some water for 21 days.

Well, while Moses was up there for 40 days, very interesting what happened to him in Exodus chapter 34 again in reading from verse 29. And it came to pass when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, it came to pass that Moses wished not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.

And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone. And they were afraid to come nigh unto him. Moses was overwhelmed with the presence of the living God. And we're told, if we continue to read here, that Moses from that time there on the mount alone with God, from there forward, every time he got into the presence of God, he took this veil off of his face and the presence of God so permeated his face, his skin, that he shined.

He shined a little bit like Jesus did on the Mount of Transfiguration. So much so that the children of Israel were afraid of him. And in order to relate to them, he put this veil over his face after he came from the presence of God.

The Spirit Upon the Seventy Elders

Moses was affected by the presence of God. Turn with me to Numbers 11. In Numbers 11, we have another beautiful account to consider here this morning. Numbers 11, verse 16. Moses is overwhelmed with the workload.

He's burdened down with all these people and all their problems and everything that needs to be done. And he's having a hard time bearing all of it. And he comes to God and talks to God about it. And God talks to him.

And he says in verse 16 and 17 of chapter 11,. And the Lord said unto Moses, Gather unto Me 70 men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and officers over them, and bring them unto the tabernacle of the congregation, that they may stand there with thee.

And I will come down and talk with thee there. And I will take of the Spirit which is upon thee and will put it upon them. And they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone.

Now, I want us to remember the Spirit that is upon Moses. We were just looking at the Spirit that was upon Moses. Now God is saying, Okay Moses, too much for you to bear? No problem. You choose out 70 men.

Let them come and stand with you in the tabernacle. I'm going to come down and I'm going to take the Spirit that is upon you and put it on them. Beautiful. An extension of the kingdom is going to take place.

I'm going to extend the work and I'm going to share the burden upon others. Numbers 11 and verse 24 and following. Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord and gathered the 70 men of the elders of the people and set them round about the tabernacle.

And the Lord came down in a cloud and spake unto him and took of the Spirit that was upon him and gave it unto the 70 elders. And it came to pass that when the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied and did not cease.

And there remained two of the men in the camp. The name of the one was Eldad and the name of the other was Medad. And the Spirit rested upon them and they were of them that were written but went not out under the tabernacle and they prophesied in the camp.

And there ran a young man and told Moses and said, Eldad and Medad do prophesy in the camp. And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of his young men, answered and said, My Lord Moses, forbid them.

And Moses said unto him, Envious thou for my sake would God that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them. And may I add the word, all. Upon them all. But we see from this account that when the Spirit of the Lord was placed upon those 70 men, they were overwhelmed with the presence of the living God and they couldn't help themselves.

They prophesied. That is, they were speaking forth the mind and will of God under the anointing of the Holy Spirit. That's what it means to prophesy. They were speaking forth the mind and the will of God under the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Here they are, all around the tabernacle. God comes down, puts His Spirit upon them and all of them start prophesying. Even the two that weren't even in the area there. Oh, we can take many lessons from this.

But what I want us to see this morning is there was an effect upon those men when the Spirit of the Lord came down upon them, and there will be an effect upon us when the Spirit of the Lord comes down upon us.

And would God, He would send all 500 plus of us home. And like those early apostles were when they were warned, don't you speak in His name anymore. That was like foolishness to them. Those words didn't mean a thing to them.

They said, hey, you decide whether it seems right or in the sight of God or not for us to be quiet. But as for us, we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. Why? Because the Spirit of the Lord is upon us.

That's why we can't help ourselves. Do it, Lord. Do it. You say, Brother Denny, I'm not a preacher. I don't care if you're a preacher. God wants all of His people to be anointed and speak forth the mind and will of God.

God wants to make sure some of them may be gifted to stand and minister and teach and preach and break the Word to the others. But I tell you, I know it's God's will that every single man in this room have such an anointing upon them that they cannot help but speak about the things of God.

So it doesn't matter who you are and it doesn't matter whether you have a stammering tongue or not. In fact, God likes stammering tongues. He chooses them. Would to God. He would rest upon all of us and send us out of here totally different.

Totally different. There are many examples in the Old Testament and we could look at many where the Spirit of God came upon individuals, but these are enough to show that in each case we see the influence and the effect of the presence of God and what influence it had upon these people.

And that is the point I'm wanting to make here this morning. Now let us move into the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ or Jesus the Christ, if I can give it in that order. Jesus the Christ. Israel waited for, looked for, dreamed of the coming of the Anointed.

Old Testament Prophecies of the Anointed One

The coming of the Anointed. The Christ. We look at the response of the disciples as they beheld His life. Shortly after He was anointed by the Holy Ghost, they beheld His life. This was their response.

We have found the Messiah which is being interpreted, the Christ, which interpreted, again, is the Anointed One. We have found the Anointed One. That is the best translation of what they're really saying.

We have found the One who is anointed. That's what they were saying. The prophecies in the Old Testament promised an Anointed One. And we have found the Anointed One. Come and see for yourself. Come watch His life and you will know He is the Anointed One.

Isaiah 11. Just want to look at a few of these prophecies. There are many prophecies about Christ, but I want to look at the ones that speak about His anointing. Isaiah 11. Isaiah 11, verse 1. And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might. That word is power. The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord, and shall make him of quick understanding.

What will? The Spirit will. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him and make of him quick understanding in the fear of the Lord. And He shall not judge after the sight of the eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of the ear, but with righteousness shall He judge the poor and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth.

And He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked. Chapter 42. 42, verse 1,. Behold My servant, whom I uphold, Mine elect, in whom My soul delighteth.

I have put My Spirit upon him. He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not break, and a smoking flax shall he not quench.

He shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged till he have set judgment in the earth, and the isles shall wait for His law. And the last one, which is famous, Isaiah 61, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek.

He hath sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn.

And we could read on and on there, but we won't for time. The point I'm making is, these prophecies guided the heart and the expectations of Israel. There will come the anointed. When will the anointed come?

Which was spoken of by the prophets of old. When will He come? And the early disciples said, We have found the anointed One. Come and see. We have watched His life. We have seen His living. We have watched Him move.

And He is the anointed One. We have found Him. We see in these verses the balanced nature of this anointing and power that came upon Him. We see that the anointing was there with a plan and a purpose in mind.

We see that that anointing gave Him supernatural character. We can get all of that just from looking at those verses in the Old Testament. But we will also see it as we see these verses lived out in the reality of the life of the Christ while He walked upon the earth.

A supernatural character and a supernatural ministry. Now let's look at that anointing. Turn to Luke. Luke chapter 2. We want to look just a little bit at Jesus as a child. And the reason why we want to look at Him before His anointing is so that we can see that there was a definite marked difference in His life before and after the anointing was put upon Him.

Jesus Christ’s Anointing and Spirit-Empowered Ministry

In verse 40, we read these words. The child, that's Jesus, the child Jesus grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him. A little bit further down in the text, we come to that place.

Remember how they came to Jerusalem when He was twelve years old? And if you understand Jewish customs there, when a young man becomes twelve years old, he goes through what they call bar mitzvah, which means bound to the commandments.

He makes his choice to serve God and serve the law of God. And Jesus was twelve years old. I don't know if all of that is connected in here, but it is interesting that it happens when they're twelve, and Jesus is twelve years old.

But, Mary and Joseph head back home, and Jesus stays in Jerusalem. We know that story. They find Him. They're shocked. And He's shocked that they're shocked. Amen? And you can imagine from their perspective, three days...

I mean, I've lost my children a couple of times, you know, and wondered where they are. And you know what goes on inside of you. You don't know where they are, what's going on. Three days they're looking for this young fellow.

And then He says to them, I wish you not that I must be about my father's business. Hey! This is what it's all about. This is why I'm here. Well, He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was subject unto them.

But His mother kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. So that's about all we get into the glimpse of the life of the Lord Jesus before He was anointed.

But we'll see a little later here in Luke that the people were even surprised. You know, they would say things like, What is this? Isn't this Joseph's son? I mean, we know Joseph's son. He's been around for years.

What is all this he's doing? Luke 3. Verse 21. And when all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized. And praying, the heaven was opened. And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him.

And a voice came from heaven which said, Thou art my beloved Son. In thee I am well pleased. Baptized with water and baptized with the Holy Spirit. Chapter 4, verse 1. We're going to skip the genealogy.

But this verse follows that verse that we just read. And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. So, we have a different Jesus now. He is anointed now.

His ministry has begun. And after His baptism, that dove rested upon Him and He, being full of the Holy Ghost, was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. We'll skip the temptation and go down to verse 14.

And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit after the temptation. He returned in the power of the Spirit. Alright, let's go to verse 18 and read from verse 18 to 23. Now, Jesus is in His hometown. He's been there many, many times.

All His years growing up, He's been in that synagogue. He's been there many, many times. Now, He's here. And He asks for the book, the book of Isaiah. And He opens it up and He reads these words. And by the way, He reads them with all the unction that they were breathed out with.

Amen? This was not a normal reading of the book of Isaiah that took place in that synagogue. The Anointed One is now standing in the synagogue. And He opens up the book of Isaiah and He begins to read those words.

In the Spirit that they were breathed out by the prophet Isaiah. He reads them. The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me. Because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor, He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

And He closed the book and gave it again to the minister. And He sat down. Silence. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on Him. Why? Because He just read those verses in the unction and power of the Holy Ghost.

And they're all looking at this guy and saying, what? And He began to say unto them, this day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all bear Him witness and wonder at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth.

And they said, is not this Joseph's son?

Isn't this Joseph's son? What is this?

It is the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus. Well, they got pretty upset in there and tried to throw Him off of a cliff and kill Him. And He went on to another synagogue. And it says in verse 32, they were astonished at His doctrine for His word was with power.

He spoke words and those words were with power. And it arrested everybody's attention. And they were astonished at the things that He was saying because of the power that was behind the words. Well, in the synagogue there was a man which had a spirit of an unclean devil and cried out with a loud voice saying, let us alone.

What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him saying, hold thy peace and come out of Him. And when the devil had thrown Him into the midst, He came out of Him and heard Him not.

And they were all amazed and spake among themselves saying, what a word is this! For with authority, that's exousia, and power, that's dunamis, He commandeth the unclean spirits and they come out. We're looking at the anointing of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus the Christ needed to be filled with the Holy Ghost. Jesus the Christ needed the anointing upon Him. He was overwhelmed, immersed, covered, engulfed in the presence of the Spirit of God. And the implications of this are far reaching, brethren.

He lived under a continual anointing of the presence of His Father. He had to. It was His name. It was His very name. If the Lord Jesus Christ needed it, how much more, brethren, how much more,.

How foolish we are.

To think that it's going to be ok at judgment day that we frittered our life away without the anointing of God upon us! Just to think it. If the Lord Jesus needed to be anointed with the power of the Holy Ghost, how much more do we, His followers, need that anointing upon our lives?

He lived under that continual anointing. Christ was very careful to maintain that anointing. Those times alone. Those all nights up there on the mountains. What do you think He was doing up there? Do you think He was putting in His time for His devotions?

I've got to get up there and cover my prayer list. I've got to get so many chapters of the Bible read. See you later, disciples. I've got to go do my devotions. See you later. How many of you think that's the way He went up into the mountain?

We know better, don't we? He wasn't up there doing His devotions. He was up there bathing Himself, immersing Himself in the presence of the living God, His Father. Listening to His voice. Breathing out prayers that were inspired by the Spirit of God.

That's what He was doing alone in that mountain all night long. We know that's what He was doing. But what was He doing? Why was He doing that? He was maintaining the anointing of God upon His life. That's what He was doing.