Secrets of the Secret Place - Part 6 — Bob Sorge

Secrets of the Secret Place class. We are in session six. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, we love you. We are after you. We ask, Lord, as we together are studying to pursue you in the secret place, we're asking that you would help us, empower us by your Holy Spirit.

Prayer Retreats and the Ingredients of a Significant Encounter

May the anointing of the Lord rest upon our study now today. In Jesus' name we ask. Actually been a lifesaver for me. Liked, if I could, Jesus. And so I went into a prayer retreat on one occasion that I have in mind where I was just desperate for the Lord and I stumbled onto the ingredients that really make a prayer retreat significant.

And I want to share those with you. First off is fasting. I encourage you, if at all possible, fast on your retreat. Now, if you are physically able to, I highly recommend a water fast. And if you need to do otherwise because of health issues, that's certainly understandable.

Second element is solid. Done a few retreats now where I've actually just unplugged from everything and gone away, be it a facility, a retreat center, an apartment somewhere, or a campground, or whatever you can do to just get away and just be with the Lord for however many days you can manage it.

And then word immersion, just devouring the Word, living in the Word of God. Minimal distractions. The Lord's Supper. I personally take the Lord's Supper to almost every retreat that I do. I just, I love Jesus.

I love His cross, and I love the Lord's Supper. And that goes with me. And prayer. So those elements are worth you six. He said, when you fast, verse 17, not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place.

It's in secret. I'll reward you. Open Christianity without fasting. It doesn't exist. In all the Christian years that I've struggled with this vocal, I'm just going to say it real. Helping us to pursue the kingdom of God with spiritual violence.

I don't fast to change, fast to change. Changing the understanding and expression of Christianity in our generation. And beloved, you will never make the transition to what God is doing in these end times without fasting.

It's helping us make the transition to what God is doing. So get to the wilderness. Get along in prayer, yourself to the wilderness. Follow in the steps of Jesus. Follow in the steps of John the Baptist.

And let's hear what the Lord is saying. Must do. You'll just take it. And I just go to your spirit right now. And you're eating vultures food. Oh, and my heart just groans for me. The stuff that people will just, when they have time, the things they read.

Awakening the Church to the Word of God

And I go to churches. And can I just be a little bit transparent? And I hope you can hear my heart in this. I go to churches. It pains me. Verse come, treasure the word of God. I'm like, oh, and here's what I realized.

The church of Jesus Christ, and I'm speaking broad general strokes. If for the most part, generalities, body of Christ has not. So I didn't think I needed it. Verses to empower your prayer. Somebody says, well, it was just a night of worship.

So I didn't take my Bible. What? You didn't take your Bible to a worship night? 31 ,103 verses to empower your worship life and service. Lord Jesus, my prayer is, would you awaken the bride of Christ to what she's got?

Now, let me be, I'm just going to tell, I would read through a different translation of the Bible. Every year, and I had a measure of discipline. It was a part of my everyday life, but here's what I found here.

From Performance-Based Religion to Love-Driven Pursuit

He doesn't just deal. God's getting me at like multiple levels all at once. And one of the things he's showing me is the motivation. It was a duty. He had shown, he was showing me. I had been living out of a performance, kind of, really ought to be hypocritical.

So I guess I better do it if I ever want to preach on it. And so there was all this performance, because if I didn't do it, I felt like an incompetent pastor. And the Lord started to me, and I remember that the time when the Holy Spirit helped me to see this.

He says to me, Bob, you come to the secret place, like a gas station. You don't enjoy going to the gas station. I mean, I don't go to the gas station because I like the gas station. I go to the gas station because I like to drive.

And the Lord was showing me to get in your vehicle called ministry and run the thing. And I said, Lord, all relationship with you saw that. I mean, I wept. Love of my life. I want to energize my heart because you are the center of my universe, because I am inflamed with love sickness for you.

Lord, I want a glorious living romance with you. I want this to be a love thing. Imagine the Lord saying, yes, and I know that's what you want. And we're getting there. OK, we're on a journey here. So from your word today, oh God, I think I'm just going to go insane.

My God, what's happening in my life? You have got to show me the stuff with your friends. And where are we going with this? And I found myself with this desperate, coming after the face of God. And then what would happen was, he let your cry, secret place into that thing.

Sitting at the Feet of Jesus in the Secret Place

Now, if I've been robbed of that thing, so the secret place, because I know this is the only way, is to sit at his feet, hear his words, allow the exchange of love to happen. The flow of the fire of the Holy Spirit.

Those who devote themselves to the secret place, because they're trying to gain the Father's affection, or to recover the freedom of the gospel. Because God doesn't love you. He loves you not because of something in you.

You're never going to perform your way into earning God's affections. If you spend an hour in the secret place, two hours in the secret place, three hours, the more time you spend, aren't you some insecurity, or a valley in your soul?

Never find the joy of the secret place, and God is affection. And that's what gives me the confidence, and get ourselves into a performance mode. You know, when we start doing that, and we start trying to perform, to somehow meet God's expectations, or whatever, you know that it acts as, just substitute the word performance, because the law was all about performance.

If you did this, this, this, and this, then God does this, this, and this was the basis of the law. But Paul says, this performance thing leads us on Christ. It's not my performance that gets me accepted to Abba.

It's Jesus' performance on the cross. And so by faith, I accept the performance of Christ. The righteousness of Christ is now mine, and I am accepted before Abba, because I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

What he did on the cross, I believe not in my work, but in his work. Not in my performance, but in his performance. It's all about faith. Common feelings among believers is this feeling of never doing enough.

365 against, never doing enough, inside of us of, I've got to do more. I have to, I have to give more. I've got to give more time. I've got to, I've got to read more. I've got to, and if we have that kind of a negative motivation, of it's just never enough, we, we will never find the fullness of the joy of the secret place from a negative motivation.

That's what I'm trying to say. So what my best answer is, to be awakened. Destructions get out of my way. Calendar, you will submit, and you will start doing whatever you have to do to safeguard the secret place because you have learned man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

And this beloved is the whole reason that this class is happening. That's why we're taking this course. Lord Jesus, we have to be awakened to this kindness in the heart of your saints. I would like to just say it to you this, say it to you this way, and why distinguish readers of scripture, their download from heaven.

Logos and Rhema: Receiving the Word Directly from Heaven

It came as a rhema. They were like, that is incredible. That rhema set them on fire and they put that thing on paper. But when you got it on paper, it came to you as a logos. They got a rhema from heaven.

But when you got it from them on paper, you got it as a logos because nobody can give you a rhema logos. The only way to get a rhema, you have to get it directly from heaven. And it can give you a rhema.

There's not a book can give you. There's not a conference can give it to you. There's not a speaker. There's not a pastor. There's not a preacher. Nobody can give you a rhema. For years. And that's my answer.

It lights you up like light bulb. You get on the phone. You tell your friend, this sentence gave me the answer. And you tell your friend your rhema and your friend goes, I just gave you the hottest download I've gotten in years from heaven.

And that's the most excitement you can muster. Well, remember share it with somebody else. It gets downgraded to logos. That's what I've discovered. This is getting a rhema. I just gave you a jewel with that statement right there.

That's why we pursue the secret place. That's why we come after the word of God. Because, you know, sometimes the word can just be a little bit dull, a little bit logosy, if you know what I mean. But if you will stay in it, there will come a time when the rhema will come to your heart.

Sowing to the Spirit and Reaping Life

Galatians 6 verse 8, he who sows to the flesh will reap of the flesh corruption. But he who sows to the spirit will of the spirit reap everlasting life. And if you will sow to the secret place, beloved, I think I can say this with confidence.

Sow to the secret place, you will eventually reap to the secret place. God will give you a rhema. And once you get a rhema from heaven, you're hooked. Once God feeds your spirit with the living word from heaven, oh, you will become awakened to the glory and the wonder.

Scripture's Validation of Suffering and Darkness

This is such a remarkable book. I love this book. Every time I get depressed, I come back to this book. You cannot get depressed reading the Bible. It is such an awesome book. In fact, the most depressing chapter in the Bible, I think Psalm 88.

I used to think Psalm 88 was one of the most depressing chapters in the whole Bible because it starts with pain, it's filled with pain, and it ends with a cry of pain. That's all Psalm 88 is. There's no thanksgiving, there's no praise, there's no joy, there's no hope.

There is just one massive cry of pain. I used to think it was a morbid Psalm. But when I found myself in the throes of depression, I came to Psalm 88 and I realized the scripture validates a place in God where all you feel is pain, all you see is blackness, and all you've got are tears.

And there's a Psalm to validate being in that kind of blackness. It encourages you and says, God has a purpose even in this darkness, and he will bring my life. It's my sanity. It's our source. Beloved, I pray for you and awakening to the word of God.

Let's just pray right now. Lord Jesus, I am asking that you would awaken the church of Jesus Christ in this hour. I am asking that you would use somehow in a small way, even this course, this book, Secrets of the Sacred Place, would you help us in our discussion groups?

Would you empower your people, the joy relationship with you and your word? I ask you to do it.