The Presence of Jesus — David Valderrama

The Holy Spirit as the Presence of Jesus

In Acts chapter 2, chapter 1, Jesus tells his disciples, verse 7,. And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put in his own power. But you shall receive power.

After that the Holy Ghost has come upon you. You shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. What is the Holy Spirit? Some people believe the Holy Spirit is a person.

He's definitely a person. But what is the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit isn't some mechanical, it's not an instrument. The Holy Spirit is not an idea, it's not some intellectual understanding that we have, some information that we receive that we say amen and agree with.

The Holy Spirit is the presence of Jesus. That's what the Holy Spirit is. The presence of Jesus. John chapter 14, Jesus says, If a man loves me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him.

He that does not love me does not keep my sayings. The word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me. Jesus said, I will not leave you comfortless. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you.

The Holy Spirit is the presence of Jesus. Jesus said, God is spirit. That's his substance, his... If you can even use the word substance to describe what God is, Jesus said that God is spirit, or a spirit.

That's what he is. Jesus says that to his disciples, he says, You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

Jesus ascended in their midst. Went up. The cloud received him out of their sight. But he said, I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. I believe with all my heart that the Holy Spirit is the presence of Jesus.

To have somebody's presence, it's not some intangible, undiscernable, something you can't recognize. It's not just something that was said and we believe is true. It's something that is real. Something that we can experience right now.

It's a promise of the new covenant. The prophet Jeremiah, it was confirmed in the book of Hebrews. A new covenant will I make with the house of Israel. Their sins and their lawless deeds will I remember no more.

I will put my spirit in them. As it says in 2 Corinthians chapter 6 also. It says, I will dwell in them. It's been God's plan to dwell in us. To have such an intimate relationship with us that he's not outside but he's inside.

And if he lives inside of you through the Holy Spirit, you have the presence of Jesus on the inside of you. The very presence of the Lamb of God dwells inside of you. And you will know that this is the truth when you believe it.

When you truly let go of all rationalizing and just like all these voices and all these ideas and all these questions and everything you grew up hearing. And you just with childlike faith say, Lord, I believe you dwell inside of me.

Christ's Manifest Presence and the Believer's Experience

Jesus says that he will manifest himself in those who have his words and keep them. It's a promise. There may be a lot of people that hear his words and they keep them, but they don't understand what he's saying.

He says, I will manifest myself in them. There's the omnipresence of God and there's the manifest presence of God, the omnipresence of God. Everybody, you know, the scriptures say that he feels heaven and earth.

He feels all things. The manifest presence of Jesus is a very personal, intimate, awakening, opening of the understanding and illuminating, inspiring, vivifying, encouraging, loving influence on the inside of the heart of man that produces adoration, produces obedience, produces worship, inspires us to persevere through trials.

It's something where you can just sit down and just sing to Jesus for hours. You lost all track of time because there's something you're experiencing on the inside of you that is real. And it's for everyone.

It wasn't just the 12 disciples here in Acts chapter one, verse eight. There were 120 in that upper room, 120 disciples, and we don't even have all their names. It was a nameless, faceless, placeless tribe up in this upper room.

We don't know who they were. We don't really know where this was. It's just called the upper room. God poured out his spirit upon these people. They prophesied. They spoke with other tongues. They glorified God in languages they've never spoken that they didn't learn.

And people, just passers-by heard them glorifying God and praising him. And it says that there were like cloven tongues of fire. There's this fire. Like Jesus says, John said of Jesus that he will baptize the Holy Ghost with fire.

When you think of fire, you think of this purifying power that just, like when you think about gold, when you think about cleansing something, it is burning like sanctifying it, cleansing it. You think of fire.

But just the presence of Jesus, it's the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of you, it's Jesus himself. There's moments when you feel comforted, when your heart is encouraged and you feel comforted because you just perceive that God is with you.

Or there's some word that comes into your mind. Or there's a teaching that comes to your mind. There's some type of ministry of the Holy Spirit to you. Producing thoughts, feelings, desires. That's Jesus ministering to you.

There's times when you feel really hopeful. And you just feel like you can move mountains. If you said mountain, be moved and cast into the sea. Be healed in the name of Jesus Christ. Unclean spirit, leave that man.

Be raised up out of your sickbed. Or whenever you feel like somebody that you dearly love just slandered you and betrayed you and shamed you publicly. Someone that you trusted and yet you feel this immense comfort in your heart.

At the same time, you feel like it's almost like somebody's there. They're holding you. You're comforted. It's the presence of Jesus on the inside of you. Whenever I first turned to the Lord, the two things that the Lord was teaching me.

It was the fear of the Lord. And His love. And it was first the fear of the Lord. I was reading the scriptures for the first time. And I kept reading this phrase in the Old Testament. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life saving one from the snares of death.

In the fear of the Lord there are honor, riches, and humility. The fear of the Lord. No good thing will the Lord withhold from those who fear Him. Here in Psalm 19, it says that the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever.

And when I think about the fear of the Lord, it's not just Jesus dwelling in our hearts through faith. It's not just the presence of Jesus. It's not just when Jesus comes to live on the inside of us, makes His home in us.

It's whenever He opens up our ability to perceive Him on the inside of us. That's whenever He's manifested to some type of our spiritual senses. It says, taste and see that the Lord is good. You don't use your tongue to do that.

It talks about how Christ offered Himself as a sweet smelling savor. You don't use your nose to smell what that smells like. When the woman with the issue of blood pressed her way through the crowd, she touched the hem of His garment.

And Jesus stopped and said, who touched me? She didn't touch just the hem of His garment. She touched Him. We don't touch Jesus with our hands today. But there's these spiritual senses that we have that can be awakened through the Holy Spirit.

Through just a childlike faith. And this is how we perceive. And we need to hunger and thirst for this. We need to desire this more than anything. Is to have this abiding presence of Jesus where He's manifesting Himself in us on a daily basis.

As we're working. Tomorrow when we tear off that metal roof, I need the presence of Jesus. And it's amazing. Whenever He opens up my senses, we'll listen to music and we'll be singing and we'll be fellowshipping.

Whenever we're doing that, as we're working in those conditions, it's going to be cold. It's a little dangerous. Those boards might break below us. We just got to be really careful. And I may have aches and pains in my body.

But when I'm in this place where I perceive the presence of Jesus on the inside of me. And there's this comfort inside. It's like those aches and pains. They may still be there, but I'm not even thinking about them at that time.

Things could just be falling apart. Or my plans could just crash. Things not work out the way I expected them to. But if I have the abiding presence of Jesus on the inside of me, I'm as happy as can be.

I'm as content and satisfied as I could ever be. Because of this real manifestation of Jesus Christ in my heart. I won't be angry. I won't be frustrated. I won't murmur. I won't complain. I won't be a doubter.

I'll be a believer. I'll have faith. And another thing about the presence of Jesus is that when it's the real presence of Jesus, you'll find yourself being more of a witness to the lost. When you're really abiding in the presence of Jesus on a daily basis, you'll find yourself being moved by his presence.

Abiding in Christ and Becoming Witnesses

Because Jesus said, follow me and I will make you to become fishers of men. He said, follow me. That still applies to us today to follow him. But he said, follow me. It's connected with the person, not just a theology.

It's connected to a person, not just pages. It's connected to a person. Not just information, not just commandments. But he says, follow me. It still applies to us today. We need to follow him. We need to pursue him with our whole heart.

Where is he? Where is he? But Jesus said, you know, it's not here or there, it's within you. If the king lives inside of you, well, there's his kingdom. He wants to rule and reign through our hearts every day of our life.

And that is ultimately the only way we can be satisfied. We weren't created for things. We were created to be loved. God is love. And when our hearts are attached to things, or events, or information, or activities, we'll never be satisfied because we were created to be loved.

And when we're loved by Jesus on a daily basis, and we experience his presence, his life, his peace, his comfort, that's what satisfies our heart. That's what produces patience, humility, kindness, gentleness, self-control.

A lot of people don't have self-control because they're not abiding in him. They believe in the idea of abiding in him. They believe the scripture that says we're to abide in him. They still abide in the faith that they believe in him, but they're not abiding in him.

And we need this manifest presence of Jesus. It's a promise of Jesus. It shouldn't be strange to anybody as a believer. It shouldn't be. The idea of it shouldn't be strange. It's what Jesus said will happen.

He will do this. And as Paul said, he is faithful who also will do it. And Jesus wants to do this so much more than we want him to. But it says that the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The fear of the Lord, it's an awareness of Jesus.

It's an awareness of the presence of Jesus. Because whenever you're aware that Jesus is here, like if he was physically in this room, what will be the result? Joy. Yes. Joy. What else? Gravity. And peace.

Peace. But do you think everybody will be able to say that? Joy, gravity, and peace. Maybe they'll be able to say gravity. But can they say joy and peace? What does gravity mean? It means sober. No foolishness.

It could be child likeness, but no childishness. I'll have to explain that to you later. Paul said, when I became a man, I put away childish things. But he was very childlike. Wonder. Wonder. Yeah, wonder all.

I would say, I would agree with all that. I would say that naturally, you know, if Jesus was here physically in the room, there would be two kinds of fear. But it says that the fear of the Lord is clean.

I can really walk in the fear of the Lord. You know, when you really love someone, when you really respect them, when you fear, when you're afraid to lose their fellowship, when you're afraid, not because they would, like, disown you necessarily, but just because you don't want to grieve them, you don't want the special, intimate communion, the sweet refreshment you experience and that you enjoy from having a peaceful, abiding union with them, you don't want that to be broken.

And that produces a fear. You want to be able to have joy in their presence. You want to be able to have peace. You don't want to be trembling in terror and afraid. Oh, Jesus is in the room. I better get my act together, or...

Oh, no. Jesus is in the room. What does he see in me? But I think that there can be both, really. I think that there can be, like, both. Like Job said, I think Job 42, he said, I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.

Therefore, I abhor myself and repent and dust and ashes. Like, the presence of Jesus makes things visible that are on the inside of us. And I don't think Job was terrified in the sense that he was terrified of the Lord, but I think that he saw himself for what he really was, because that manifest presence of the Lord made what is on the inside of him visible.

And he didn't take off running from the presence of the Lord. He said, I repent, I abhor myself, and I repent and dust and ashes. He just had deep grief for what he was, for his pride, for whatever it was that he saw on the inside of him.

Just, he was, he abhorred it. But I believe that he also experienced some type of comfort. And you think of Isaiah, his eyes were open, the eyes of his understanding, or his physical eyes, or something was open to where he could see the Lord, and the train of his robe was filling the temple.

The angels were crying, Holy, Holy, Holy. It's like they were crying so loud that it says the post of the door were shaking. They were responding to something they were experiencing, to something that they were seeing.

And when Isaiah saw this, he says, I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of the people of unclean lips. He says, I'm undone. What am I going to do? I'm a carnal man. I know what I am. And yet I just saw the most beautiful person I've ever seen, the most glorious, the most holy, the most loving, the most kind, the most good, the most terrifying person, the most awesome, wondrous sight that I've ever seen.

I just saw that. I'm undone. That manifest presence of the Lord awakened something on the inside of Isaiah. Look at Moses, you know, in his encounter at the burning bush. He turned over to see the sight.

You know, some people, you know, they hear about wonderful things. They may see and recognize, yeah, that's wonderful. Like Jesus was really crucified for me. That's wonderful. But they don't turn aside from, like, the cares of this life, from whatever is going on inside their hearts that just causes them to self-focus.

They don't turn aside to see the sight of the Christ, the creator of all things, that was crucified for me, for them. But Moses, he just saw this bush on fire, and it wasn't being consumed. He turned aside to see the sight, and there he encountered the I Am.

The Presence of Jesus in Moses' Perseverance

Jesus said it before Abraham was I Am. He met the Lord Jesus Christ right there. And I think that he was never the same again. He wasn't able to speak. He didn't have confidence. He didn't have courage.

The presence of Jesus made him stand in the presence of Pharaoh and say, Let my people go. And he could have got his head chopped off. It made him bear with probably millions of people. There were 600 ,000 men, besides women and children, probably over a million people that were murmuring and complaining that wanted to kill him and just go back to Egypt.

That presence of Jesus as he abode in the tabernacle, as he worshiped the Lord, as he was there in the mountain lingering for 40 days and 40 nights, being in the presence of Jesus made him of such a man, made him such a man that he could lead his people through the wilderness with no food, no clean water, nothing, no gas stations.

With all their murmurings and complainings and their threats and their rebellion, to the promised land or just right outside of it. For decades, he lived that way. It takes a lot of power. I could not imagine myself, even if I saw all those things, the Red Sea being parted and just the fire by night and the cloud by day.

If I would have seen all that stuff, I would have been amazed. But to have to live in a wilderness for 40 years, it's just hot, super hot. There's no water, except for the Lord claimed the rock and water gushed out.

You still have to go get it. And you're just a pilgrim, a stranger in this foreign land. There's really nothing to eat. And with all these people, you have to use the bathroom. You can't buy new clothing.

You've got all these different things going on. But it's the presence of Jesus that made Moses be what he was, so he could lead those people. But it says that the fear of the Lord is clean. And I find that the fear of the Lord, it cleanses me.

Practicing the Presence in Everyday Life

The type of fear I'm talking about is when my senses are opened up by him to perceive him. Because a lot of the times whenever I'm focused on work, on finishing bids for jobs, trying to stay connected with all the suppliers who supply us material, or the jobs we're working on, or just different relationships through social media, I find myself sometimes disconnected from that place where I want to be.

And that's where I'm experiencing Jesus, and I'm perceiving him. And I want to be in that place in all that busyness. Whenever I'm busy, I want to be able to... Imagine if we just brought that into every relationship on social media.

Imagine if we brought that to the suppliers there at Lowe's, or M &M Lumber, or these different places. We would have revival there, ultimately. We've experienced that sometimes. What was his name there?

Max. We were at Lowe's. He invited us over for dinner. Braden started talking to him, and then we started talking to him. And he just wanted to... He was talking about moving to come live with us. He wanted us to meet his family.

He felt really close to Jesus. He said his heart just... He was describing how his heart felt, how refreshing it was. That's because Jesus... It's because of Jesus and what he's done inside of us. What's that in Oklahoma?

That was in Michigan. And there's just over here at this place in Oklahoma, in West Tulsa, this lady at Lowe's. We were able to... She just opened up with me her whole life story, and we were able to talk to her, minister to her.

Seeking Jesus with the Whole Heart

It took like two hours, maybe more. I don't know. And I wouldn't imagine if Jesus was there listening to her, he would have been thinking about how he had to leave to go work. Jeremiah 29. This is another promise of Jesus.

What's the first promise of Jesus? I read tonight. If we have... If we have his words and we keep them, Jesus says, I will love him. I will manifest myself inside of him. This is another promise. He says, You shall seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.

And I will be found of you, says the Lord. And I will turn away your captivity. And I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord. And I will bring you again into the place once I cause you to be carried away captive.

This promise, as I'm reading this, I think of two things. I think of people that have sought for the Lord, but they haven't found him. They haven't found him in the way that I'm describing. They're still captive somewhat to some type of bondage.

But Jesus says that when we search for him, we will find him when we search for him with all of our heart. What is the heart? It's the seed of our thoughts and feelings, our emotions, our desires, the very innermost things that are inside of us on a daily basis.

Our affections. It could be our determination, our will, the choices we're making, the things that we're inclining ourselves to do. Does the Lord have your attention throughout the day? What captivates you?

What has your attention? Is it him? Is it your desire to find him? Is it your desire to experience his presence and to be transformed by it to his likeness? The psalmist said, I shall be satisfied when I awake in your likeness.

I'm tired of just being in bondage. I want your heart to be satisfied. The psalmist says, I shall be satisfied when I awake in your likeness. That awakening can happen now in this life. I find myself over the years awakening more and more to his likeness.

But whenever I was born again, I awoke into his likeness in a way that was very... I want to experience it more. It's interesting because it says right here, it says, And I will bring you again into the place where I have caused you to be carried away captive.

The Lord is able to bring us again into that place, a secret place of his presence. And it says in his presence, there's fullness of joy, that joy of that sweet communion. Peter talked about when we repent from the heart, the times of refreshment will come.

The presence of the Lord. I think it's Acts chapter three or chapter four. The two promises that I really want everybody to think about are these right here. He that has my words and keeps them, he it is that loves me and I will love him.

Didn't Jesus already love us? Why is he saying that? If he already loves us, why is he saying, I will love him? Why? Because he's going to love you in a way that you haven't experienced yet. In a way that's distinct from just the whole world.

Like for God so loved the world that he gave his only to God's son. But there's a special intimate love for those that have his words and keep them. It draws his affection. There's something that arouses his passion for us that he blesses us with a very special and intimate friendship.

Yeah, there's this. And it's the most satisfying thing in the world. I mean, it's out of this world. You can't find it in this world. But Jesus said, he that has my words and keeps them, he it is that loves me and I will love him.

I mean, Jesus gave his life on the cross. How could he love us anymore? He can. That ought to motivate us. People think, well, he'll never love you anymore or any less. That's what people say today. Jesus said, I will love him.

He that has my words and keeps them, he it is that loves me and I will love him. Does that mean he doesn't love those that don't keep his words and hearing them? No. No, it's interesting how he didn't say the next part.

He says, he that does not love me does not keep my sayings. And he doesn't follow that saying. Therefore, I will not love him. Or therefore, I've never loved him. But there is definitely a special blessing, a special love that he bestows upon those that keep his words.

And this is the second promise that I really want us all to lay hold of. He says, and he shall seek me and find me when he search for me with all your heart. And I will be found by you, says the Lord.

And I will turn away your captivity. Many people are still in some type of bondage because they're not seeking the Lord with all their heart. All bondage is in here. Strongholds are built in here. Temptation is in here.

Lust is in here. Fear is in the heart. It all takes place in the heart. Many people are imprisoned by these things. They can't break free at all by themselves. It only happens when we search for the Lord with our whole heart.

Jesus promises, you will find me if you do this. And sometimes it's interesting, you know, there's a lot of people that may feel like, I've searched for Jesus with my whole heart and I can't relate to what you're saying.

That's your opinion. Is that his opinion? Does he feel like, does he think that you searched for him with your whole heart? I have often found that sometimes Jesus allows us to just believe and to trust and to seek with all of our heart until we're completely emptied.

We have no more faith. We have no more heart to seek him. That's what you see when he was leading the people through the wilderness. Even to the Red Sea. He literally led them to the most difficult place to get to that mountain to worship him.

He didn't have a boat. There weren't people like a boat taxi, you know, like in Bolivia, where you just get on there and they take you to the other side. He led them into the most difficult place where all their faith and all their hope and all their heart to seek the Lord and to trust him was totally spent.

It was at that moment when they even wanted to stone Moses. Moses himself didn't even know what to do. He was just saying, Lord, they want to stone me. They want to kill me. What am I going to do? And the Lord says, stand still and see the salvation of God.

Sometimes people have a very difficult time standing still because their restless hearts were just spent, totally emptied of all faith. Desire to seek him because they didn't find him as he promised. So they're restless.

They just can't be still. Got to be occupied and busy doing this and doing that. They won't stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. What if you found the Lord and you're so busy trying to find him that you miss him?

There's a Jason Upton song that I really like. He says, I get so thirsty trying to find your presence that I forget to stop and take a drink. I get so thirsty trying to find your presence that I forget to stop and take a drink.

And all the while you were right there wanting, waiting to pour your healing waters over me. We need to be still. When we seek the Lord and we feel like all faith is spent and we just feel like he's a liar or that we're just one of these predestined ones that he will never manifest himself to, we need to stand still.

We can't allow these feelings to rule our lives. We've got to still our hearts before him and wait. We will see his salvation. We will find his promise to be true. He shall find me when you seek me with your whole heart.

That's the Christian. Things work, Christian.