The Pursuit Of His Presence Order Printed Copy

Author: Kenneth And Gloria Copeland
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Inspiring, I was much impacted.

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Some of the contents are great.

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No comment! Reading in progess...

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About the Book

"The Pursuit of His Presence" by Kenneth and Gloria Copeland explores the importance of seeking and cultivating a deep relationship with God. The book emphasizes the benefits of experiencing God's presence in daily life through prayer, worship, and meditation on His word. It offers practical advice and encouragement for believers to draw closer to God and live a life filled with His peace, joy, and power.

John Bunyan

"I saw a man clothed with rags … a book in his hand and a great burden upon his back." Successful English writers were, in John Bunyan's day, nearly synonymous with wealth. Men like Richard Baxter and John Milton could afford to write because they didn't need to earn a living. But Bunyan, a traveling tinker like his father, was nearly penniless before becoming England's most famous author. His wife was also destitute, bringing only two Puritan books as a dowry. "We came together as poor as poor might be," Bunyan wrote, "not having so much household-stuff as a dish or spoon betwixt us both." What allowed Bunyan to become the bestselling author of one of the most beloved books in the English language was when things actually got worse: an imprisonment of 12 years. Early temptations >Born in Elstow, Bedfordshire, Bunyan married at age 21. Those books his wife brought to the marriage began a process of conversion. Gradually, he gave up recreations like dancing, bell ringing, and sports; he began attending church and fought off temptations. "One morning as I did lie in bed," he wrote in his autobiography, "I was, as at other times, most fiercely assaulted with this temptation, to sell and part with Christ; the wicked suggestion still running in my mind, Sell him, sell him, sell him, sell him, sell him, as fast as a man could speak." Bunyan was drawn to the Christian fellowship he saw among "three or four poor women sitting at a door ... talking abut the things of God." He was also befriended by John Gifford, minister at a Separatist church in Bedford. The tinker joined the church and within four years was drawing crowds "from all parts" as a lay minister. "I went myself in chains to preach to them in chains," he said, "and carried that fire in my own conscience that I persuaded them to beware of." Prison: a mixed blessing >Bunyan's rise as a popular preacher coincided with the Restoration of Charles II. The freedom of worship Separatists had enjoyed for 20 years was quickly ended; those not conforming with the Church of England would be arrested. By January 1661, Bunyan sat imprisoned in the county jail. The worst punishment, for Bunyan, was being separated from his second wife (his first had died in 1658) and four children. "The parting ... hath oft been to me in this place as the pulling the flesh from my bones," he wrote. He tried to support his family making "many hundred gross of long tagg'd [shoe] laces" while imprisoned, but he mainly depended on "the charity of good people" for their well-being. Bunyan could have freed himself by promising not to preach but refused. He told local magistrates he would rather remain in prison until moss grew on his eyelids than fail to do what God commanded. Still, the imprisonment wasn't as bad as some have imagined. He was permitted visitors, spent some nights at home, and even traveled once to London. The jailer allowed him occasionally to preach to "unlawful assemblies" gathered in secret. More importantly, the imprisonment gave him the incentive and opportunity to write. He penned at least nine books between 1660 and 1672 (he wrote three others—two against Quakers and the other an expository work—before his arrest). Profitable Mediations, Christian Behavior (a manual on good relationships), and The Holy City (an interpretation of Revelation) were followed by Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, considered the greatest Puritan autobiography. But from 1667 to 1672, Bunyan probably spent most of his time on his greatest legacy, The Pilgrim's Progress. Pilgrim's success >Charles II eventually relented in 1672, issuing the Declaration of Indulgence. Bunyan was freed, licensed as a Congregational minister, and called to be pastor of the Bedford church. When persecution was renewed, Bunyan was again imprisoned for six months. After his second release, Pilgrim's Progress was published. "I saw a man clothed with rags ... a book in his hand and a great burden upon his back." So begins the allegorical tale that describes Bunyan's own conversion process. Pilgrim, like Bunyan, is a tinker. He wanders from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, a pilgrimage made difficult by the burden of sin (an anvil on his back), the Slough of Despond, Vanity Fair, and other such allegorical waystations. The book was instantly popular with every social class. His first editor, Charles Doe, noted that 100,000 copies were already in print by 1692. Samuel Taylor Coleridge called it, "the best Summa Theologicae Evangelicae ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired." Every English household that owned a Bible also owned the famous allegory. Eventually, it became the bestselling book (apart from the Bible) in publishing history. The book brought Bunyan great fame, and though he continued to pastor the Bedford church, he also regularly preached in London. He continued to write. The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680) has been called the first English novel (since it is less of an allegory than Pilgrim's Progress), and was followed by another allegory, The Holy War. He also published several doctrinal and controversial works, a book of verse, and a children's book. By age 59 Bunyan was one of England's most famous writers. He carried out his pastoring duties and was nicknamed "Bishop Bunyan." In August 1688, he rode through heavy rain to reconcile a father and son, became ill, and died.

The Ordinary People God Chose - Learning to Love the Local Church

I’m not athletic. I’m not competitive. I don’t like to sweat. I have trouble remembering the rules of games. The only organized sport on my life’s résumé is two years of collegiate synchronized swimming — a singular exception that only proves the rule. But for someone who doesn’t like sporting events, I end up watching a lot of them. I’ve shivered on wooden bleachers during snowy college football games. I’ve sunburned in the outfield at minor (and major) league baseball games. I’ve covered my ears during deafening basketball games. I’ve flinched and winced at ice hockey games. I’ve arrived early for batting practice, and I’ve stayed late for the fireworks. And I don’t just watch. I wear the team colors. I sing the team song. I bite my fingernails in the bottom of the ninth. When we win, I rejoice. When we lose, I’m genuinely disappointed. My surprising conduct has an explanation: I love people who love sports. The people in my family delight in goals and strikes and penalty shots, and so, over time, I’ve learned to take pleasure in those things too. What they love, I want to love. At times, the local church can seem to us like a sporting event to a non-athlete, or a baking show to a microwave cook, or a book club to someone who doesn’t like to read. It can seem like a big fuss over something insignificant and lots of work with unimpressive results. Week after week, the unremarkable people of our local congregations gather to do the same things in the same way, followed by stale coffee served at plastic tables in a damp basement. We may wonder, Why bother? The answer requires us to look beyond our own experiences and inclinations — it requires us to look to God himself. Having been redeemed by the blood of Christ and changed by the work of the Spirit, we love God. What God loves, we therefore want to love. And God loves the church. Our First Love We didn’t always love God, of course. To begin with, we hated him. The Bible describes us as enemies (Romans 5:10), strangers (Ephesians 2:12), rebels (Ezekiel 20:38), and haters (Romans 1:30); impure (Ephesians 5:5), disobedient (Ephesians 2:2), hopeless (Ephesians 2:12), and ignorant (Romans 10:3). Our sins justly placed us under his wrath and displeasure (Ephesians 2:3). We rejected God, despised his authority, and ignored his good law. We were neither lovely nor loving. But he loved us. In the counsels of eternity, he set his love on us, and in time, he sent his beloved Son to die for us so that we might enter into a loving relationship with him. He brought us out of slavery into the joyful circle of his family and made us his privileged children. Because he loved us, we now love him. Our love for God is comprehensive: involving heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). It controls us (2 Corinthians 5:14), and it compels us (John 14:15). Our days and hours and minutes are taken up with this love. Like the psalmist, we look around us and proclaim that there is nothing in all the earth we desire apart from God (Psalm 73:25). He is our first love, and he is our great love. God’s Great Love It’s appropriate, then, that we would ask ourselves, What does God love? For anyone who has ever sat in the creaking pews — or folding chairs — of a local congregation on Sunday morning, the answer might be surprising: God loves the church. Listen to what Paul tells the Ephesians: Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25–27) The glorious purpose of God’s eternal plan of redemption is the gathering and perfecting of his people. Jesus came for the sake of the church. More than thirty times in the New Testament, the church is called “beloved.” This is not because the ordinary and sometimes awkward people who gather on Sundays are themselves lovely, but because they are bound to someone who is. Christ is the one whom the Father “loved . . . before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24). He is the beloved Son. And as people who were created in him, redeemed by him, united to him, and given to him, we find our identity in him. Christ is the beloved, and in him, the church is beloved too. Loving the People God Loves Of all the games I watch, the sporting events where I have the greatest investment are the ones where my own kids are playing. When I’m in the bleachers at their basketball games or beside the dugout at their baseball games, I can’t take my eyes off the action. It might be Saturday morning T-ball, but it’s always the big game to me. When someone I love is on the team, I’m all in. Likewise, if the one our soul loves has committed himself to the church, it changes everything about our own commitment. “Beloved,” writes John, “if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11). This means that we will seek to make God’s great love for the church our own. We begin on Sunday by regularly showing up to worship together (Hebrews 10:24). It’s our highest privilege to gather with the people of God before the face of God. In the church, we also work to promote one another’s holiness, to show affection for one another, to bear one another’s needs, to encourage one another’s gifts, and to join in the cause of the gospel together. The people of our church are often outwardly unremarkable, but in the mutual love of the local church, we affirm the love that God has for us. Thankfully, we don’t have to muster up love for the church on our own strength. Before he went to the cross to redeem his people, Christ prayed for the church. He petitioned the Father “that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26). Surrounded by the ordinary and yet extraordinary, sinful and yet holy, weak and yet ultimately triumphant people of God, we look for the Father’s gracious answer to the Son’s request. And when the God who is love (1 John 4:8) dwells in us by his Spirit, we have everything we need to love the church. Article by Megan Hill