Hi GOD TV family, I’m Ben Hughes from Pour It Out Ministries. It’s such a joy to be able to speak with you for just a moment today. You know, I made up a word, and that word is “encounterable.” And I want to tell you, my friend, God is encounterable. That means that we are able to experience Him. We’re able to encounter His presence.
You know, when I was 15 years old, before that I did not know that Jesus was alive. And I want to tell you, friend, Jesus is alive and He wants to encounter you today. You know, I was in a barn, a woolshed, in New Zealand and I heard a preacher preach the Gospel. It was at a camp and I said yes to Jesus. And in that moment, I experienced the tangible, manifest presence of God. I experienced Jesus in a real way. And you know, Christianity, we often say this – it’s all about relationship. Well, I want to tell you, friend, a relationship is by definition experiential. God wants to encounter you today. He wants you to experience His presence. I want to tell you, friend, Jesus is alive.
You know, in Psalm 16, it tells us this. It says, “In His presence is fullness of joy.” In the presence of God is fullness of joy. And I love, of all the words that could have been used, the word that God chose is joy. When we experience Him, that manifest, tangible, experiential presence of God, what we experience is joy. The joy of the Lord. And you know, in Nehemiah, it tells us that the joy of the Lord is our strength. So if you’re needing strength today, the key is experiencing His presence.
Another powerful key for this – it says that “God inhabits the praises of His people.” So let me simplify this for you. If you want to experience joy, if you want to experience the strength of God, the key is giving Him praise. And that simply looks like coming before Him and just choosing to lift up the name of Jesus. You don’t have to be a great singer. You don’t have to be a musician, but you can simply just release from your heart this joyful sound and say, “Jesus, I give You praise right now. I lift up praise to You. I lift Your name above every other name.” And as we do that, He promises that His presence will come. And in His presence is fullness of joy, and the joy of the Lord is our strength.
And so my friend, I want to pray for you right now. God, I thank You that You are encounterable. And that my brother or my sister watching right now – You want to encounter them even more than they want to encounter You. And so I pray for that release of Your presence. Lord, that wraparound presence of God, that tangible peace, that tangible joy would come upon you today, my friend, in a fresh and powerful way, in Jesus’ mighty name. I’m Ben Hughes. And this is God Today.