COME INTO HIS PRESENCE TASTE AND SEE THAT THE LORD IS GOOD BY STEVE DEMME Come Into His Presence ©2021 Steve Demme Published and distributed by Building Faith Families Revision 0521 For information regarding CPSIA on this printed material call: 1–888–854–6284 and provide reference #0521-052521 Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright ©2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright ©1960, 1962, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www. Lockman.org) Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from The Holy Bible, King James Version. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 5 CHAPTER 1 Overview to Seeking and Finding 9 CHAPTER 2 My Journey 13 CHAPTER 3 Taste and See that the Lord is Good 21 CHAPTER 4 ComeintoHisPresencewithSinging 25 CHAPTER 5 Enter His Gates with Thanksgiving 31 CHAPTER 6 BlessHisName 35 CHAPTER 7 BeStillandKnow 41 CHAPTER 8 Speak,Lord,YourServantIsListening 43 CHAPTER 9 HindrancestoCommuningwithGod 47 CHAPTER 10 IfMyPeople 51 CHAPTER 11 GodDesirestobeNearHisChildren 53 MeditationsonNamesandAttributesofGod 57 Study One Jesus, the Son of God 63 Study Two Jesus, the Son of Man 67 Study Three Jesus, God Incarnate 71 Study Four Jesus, the Savior 75 Study Five Jesus, the Word of God 79 Study Six Jesus, Son of David 83 Study Seven Jesus, the Christ 87 Study Eight Jesus, the Light of the World 91 Study Nine Jesus the Bread of Life 95 Study Ten Jesus the Way to the Father 99 Study Eleven Jesus the Good Shepherd 103 Study Twelve Jesus the Lamb of God 107 Study Thirteen Jesus the Reconciler 111 Study Fourteen Jesus the Resurrection and the Life 115 StudyFifteen Jesus is Our High Priest 119 Study Sixteen Jesus is the Prince of Peace 123 Study Seventeen Jesus, Messiah 127 Study Eighteen Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega 131 Study Nineteen Jesus, Faithful & True 135 Study Twenty Jesus, the Man of Sorrows 139 Study Twenty-One Jesus, King of Kings and Lord of Lords 143 Study Twenty-Two Jesus, Our Rock and Cornerstone 147 Study Twenty-Three Jesus, Teacher and Rabbi 151 Study Twenty-Four Jesus, Creator 155 Study Twenty-Five One God 159 Study Twenty-Six God, Our Father 163 Study Twenty-Seven Fairest Lord Jesus 167 Study Twenty-Eight Jesus, Our Redeemer 171 Study Twenty-Nine God, Our Refuge and Fortress 175 Study Thirty Zealous God 179 Study Thirty-One The Great I am 183 Study Thirty-Two God is Merciful and gracious 187 Study Thirty-Three God Abounds in Steadfast, Unfailing Love 191 Study Thirty-Four God is Slow to Anger, Patient, and Long-Suffering 195 Study Thirty-Five God is Spirit 199 Study Thirty-Six The Spirit is God 203 Study Thirty-Seven God is Good 207 Study Thirty-Eight The Lord of Hosts 211 Study Thirty-Nine God is Kind 215 Study Forty God is Faithful 219 Study Forty-One God Never Changes 223 Study Forty-Two The Name of Jesus 227 Study Forty-Three Immanuel 231 INTRODUCTION You may wonder how coming into God’s and sons. Truly, “every good gift and every presence is connected with building a perfect gift is from above, coming down family of faith. Great question! This book from the Father of lights.” (James 1:17) We is the most recent part of my journey as a love God because He took the initiative to husband seeking to love his wife well and as love us. We serve each other because He a father endeavoring to love and encourage first served us. We are inspired to lay our his four sons. When I first began to speak lives down for others because He first laid to parents, my exhortation to them was to His life down for us. be intentional about teaching their children I then wrote Knowing God’s Love, which God’s Word and building a strong family chronicles this journey and has many of culture. My two favorite messages were the biblical studies I compiled to transform “Family Worship” and “The Family that Stays my thinking to line up with Scripture. As I Together Stays Together.” was studying and meditating on John 15:9, After speaking on these topics for many my studies revealed another important years, I wrote Family Worship to teach and command: “As the Father has loved Me, encourage parents how to have a regular so have I loved you.” That passage came time of worship and Bible reading in their alive to me, and I embraced the truth that homes. Hymns for Family Worship was as much as the Father loved His Son, in compiled as a resource for those parents the same way the Son loved me. I am still who wanted to sing tried and true hymns moved by this verity. This truth has played with their children. a huge role in my accepting and embracing Then in 2012, as I was going through the unchanging grace of God. a personal crisis as a husband and father The last four words in John 15:9 are (the basis for Crisis to Christ), I discovered a also meaningful: “Abide in My love.” I significant principle: Steve cannot give what wondered what I had to do to abide Steve has not received. “We love because or remain in His love? I discovered the He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) I didn’t answer in the next three verses. “If you realize that I was handicapped in loving keep My commandments, you will abide God and loving my family, because I was in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s hindered in my ability to assimilate God’s commandments and abide in His love. unfailing love to me. I was not convinced in These things I have spoken to you, that My my heart of hearts that God loved and liked joy may be in you, and that your joy may me. However, the Spirit of God came to my be full. This is My commandment, that rescue and helped me grow and appreciate you love one another as I have loved you.” God’s affection and care for me as never (John 15:10–12) before. Jesus says, “Keep My commandments.” The more I grew in my comprehension of Then He specifies His commandment: love His love for me, the more I loved Him and others as He has loved us. I discovered this the better equipped I was to love my wife is called the New Commandment. “A new 5 commandment I give to you, that you love equipped Jesus to steadfastly pursue His one another: just as I have loved you, you mission with the full assurance of His also are to love one another.” (John 13:34) Father’s unfailing love and care. Jesus was I have become convinced that loving others a loved Son, which enabled Him to be a as Jesus has loved me is different than loving Savior. loving others as I want to be loved. It is Like Jesus, for me to love well, I have to similar, but with a different focus. Instead be loved well. My relationship with God of thinking about how I want to be loved by impacts my relationships with others. The others, I am focusing on how I have been more I comprehend God’s love, the more I loved by Jesus. Loved to Love is my attempt love God. Paul knew this when he recorded to understand and apply this divinely this prayer for the church in Ephesus. This inspired way of loving. As a husband, I saw church was the one who had lost their first that the command to “love your wives, as love. (Revelation 2:4) When I was seeking Christ loved the church” (Ephesians 5:25) God to help me love Him more and know is simply Paul—in the Spirit—applying the His love for me in a deeper way, I often New Commandment to marriage. prayed this prayer. Families of faith begin with each member “For this reason I bow my knees before of the family loving God, knowing God, and the Father, from Whom every family having a vital connection with the living in heaven and on earth is named, that God. When we are assimilating God’s care according to the riches of His glory He may and affection for us, we are being equipped grant you to be strengthened with power to love well. through His Spirit in your inner being, so As a father, I have given much thought to that Christ may dwell in your hearts through how our Heavenly Dad loved His Son. I have faith—that you, being rooted and grounded four sons and desire to know what a great in love, may have strength to comprehend dad looks like. Jesus said, “As the Father has with all the saints what is the breadth and loved Me.” (John 15:9) I asked myself, “How length and height and depth, and to know did His Dad love Him?” I began searching the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, the Word of God for insights into their that you may be filled with all the fullness of relationship and felt like it culminated at God.