How To Stay Full Of God All The Time

For many Christians, their relationship with God can be likened to a roller coaster or a yo-yo; it's filled with ups and downs. They attend church, or a Christian seminar/ conference and experience a wonderful touch from God. It seems like the heavens opened up for them and their lives were impacted in a significant way. After a week or so, they get distracted by the cares of this world and their encounter with God becomes a distant memory. A little later, they once again experience a wonderful touch from God and their enthusiasm for the Kingdom is renewed until another distraction knocks the wind out of their sails. This is what's called yo-yo Christianity and it can be a great frustration for many.

This was never God's desire for you and me. God doesn't want our spiritual experience to be like a roller coaster where we're on top of everything and enjoying His presence and then when circumstances change, we're down so low and feel like God's nowhere around.

Firstly, let's be clear about this: God is never the one who changes. He doesn't release and withdraw His presence from us. And yet there are many Christians who cry out to God to 'pour out' His Spirit upon them and give them a 'fresh touch'. They beg God to show them that He loves them because they can't feel His love anymore. To pray like this is unbelief because God the bible says God has already manifested His love to us by sending Jesus (1 John 4:9). Not only that, but He also promised that He would never leave us nor forsake us and this promise was sealed in the blood of Jesus. God is always broadcasting His presence, His goodness, His healing, His provision, His protection. The problem is not God but us; we are not always tuned in to receive from Him.

If you were to turn on your tv and there was no signal, you wouldn't call the tv station and beg them to broadcast their programs. You would probably change the channel first and check if you're receiving the other stations. If you aren't receiving any stations, then you'd check the connection from the tv to the antenna. Contacting a station is the very last thing you would do because the problem is more often the receiver rather than the broadcaster. In the same way, we are not tuned in to God's broadcast of provision and so instead of begging God to broadcast, we need to be checking our receivers.

The bible reveals there is a way we can avoid the roller coaster experiences and stay full on for God all the time and it's found in the following verse:

Rom 1:21 NKJV because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

This verse describes a process where people steadily move away from God. They stop glorifying God, they become unthankful, their imaginations become negative and their hearts become hardened. If this is the process by which people move away from God, then it stands to reason that doing the opposite is a process by which we can stay full on for God all the time.

What then is this process that can help us stay full of God all the time?

1. Glorify God
2. Practise Thankfulness
3. Harness Your Imagination
4. Maintain a soft heart

Let's examine these one at a time.

Glorifying God

The words 'glory' and 'glorify' come from a Hebrew word 'kabod' which means to give weight to in a good sense.  It's a bit like when I was younger if someone said something profound we would stop and consider what was said and then usually one of us would say something like 'Woah, that was heavy!'  The thought was 'heavy' in a good sense, it was deep and had a powerful impact.  Glorify means the same thing.  It means we're giving weight to the value of something, or we're giving weight to the power of something.

To glorify God means to value what He values.  You can't say that you glorify God if your life shows that you don't value what He values.  To glorify God means that we value what He says more than what others say, more than what our circumstances say, more than what economists say, more than what our families say etc...  To glorify God is to put what He says as the highest authority in our lives.

So if the doctors tell you that you have a condition that's incurable and you know Ps 103:3 says that He heals all of our diseases, then to glorify God is to value what God says more than what the doctors say.  This doesn't mean the doctors are evil or that we shouldn't consult medical advice; doctors do the best they can but there are times when they don't know what to do; it's beyond the scope of their experience.  If however, we learn to glorify God and value what He says more than the doctors, there will not be a situation we will find ourselves in where we are without hope or eventual victory.

Glorifying God also means to magnify Him. Ps 34:3 says 'Oh magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt His name together'.  When we look through a magnifying glass, we're making an object appear larger.  In the same way, magnifying the Lord is to make Him appear larger in our vision.  This does not mean that God is actually small and we need to pretend that He's much bigger than what He really is.  What it means is that God is in reality much bigger than what we can ever imagine but oftentimes we get so caught up in a situation and focus on the problem so much that we actually enlarge (or magnify) our problem and in the process we also shrink God in our perception and so have difficulty imagining that He could really turn the situation around. 

The audio recordings below provide greater detail

Part 1: Glorifying God

Part 2: Practise Thankfulness

Part 3: Harness Your Imagination

Part 4: Maintain A Soft Heart