At the top of all the invitations you will ever get will be the invitation to Experience the Presence of God! Just think, God invites us and even allows us to know Him moment by moment each and every day. No doubt you will remember our basic passage of scripture we have used throughout our study; let’s review it one more time. The Bible says in 2 Chronicles 7:13-14: “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

There is another passage I want to introduce today for our study. The passage is found in Hosea 6:1-3 and it says: “Come, let us return to the LORD. For He has torn [us], and He will heal us; He has wounded [us], and He will bind up our wounds. He will revive us after two days, and on the third day He will raise us up so we can live in His presence. Let us strive to know the LORD. His appearance is as sure as the dawn. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring showers that water the land.”

Let’s Take a Moment to…
Recapture What God Has Taught Us…

When you look at that scripture today, you will notice that there are nine times through the use of personal pronouns that God gives a snapshot of His involvement with us, even after we neglect Him. Listen to me today, God never gives up on you. God chases you when you’re running the other direction. God’s arms are open wide to you with immeasurable compassion even when you’re not living the way you need to live. Let me tell you, God loved them, and God loves you.

Let’s continue to look at what it means to personally experience God…
By Understanding What This Means to Me Personally…

I want you to notice first of all today, God’s personal invitation to us is to experience His presence. God has given you a personal invitation. How does He do that? Remember, the people are away from God, but what is God doing? He’s demonstrating that unconditional, compassionate love, and He says, “Come.”

I want you to notice another thing out of the book of Hosea 6: 1-2. God is working His process in us that moves us into His presence. Most of us today would say, “Boy I would love to have the presence of God in my life so powerfully that I could experience it every day.” If you are “in Christ,” you have Him living inside you forever. The key here is the question, “Are you experiencing His presence every day?” God is committed to you having a better life. And there is no better life without the presence of God in your life. And He’s very committed to you experiencing that presence. In other words, there are no shortcuts to following the Lord. You can’t change the processes of God; the processes of God are non-negotiable.

I want you to notice another thing in Hosea 6:2 – God’s power in us is realized only in His presence. Why does He hurt us? Why does He put us down? Why does he lay us low? Why? So that He will raise us up, not so we can talk about how great it is now, but why? So that we can live in His presence.

But I want you to notice a fourth thing here in the text: God’s promises are fulfilled when we are living in His presence. Look at verse number 3 – what a great word. “Let us strive to know the Lord,” in other words – pursue God, run after God, agonize after God and when you do, “His appearance is as sure as the dawn.”

Now as we conclude let’s…
Act on What God has said to Us…

When we seek to lives in His presence, the Bible says in Hosea: “He will come to us like the rain, like the spring showers that water the land.” May that become a reality in each of our lives!