The Bible tells us that we receive His glory by faith, because “…we…receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” (Gal 3:14). And with that in mind, Jesus explained the reason for our lack of unity when He said, “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?” (John 5:44). The more “glory” we are receiving from earthly sources, the more we are hindered in our ability to believe God for greater outpouring of His glory. And disunity results.

To a far lesser degree than God, the Bible says that there is glory in earthly things: “In a multitude of people is a kings glory…” (Pro 14:28);  “…the glory of…pride…” (Isa 13:19); “You have indeed defeated Edom…your glory…” (2 Kings 14:10); “…the glory of his riches…” (Ester 5:11); “…the glory of his house…” (Psa 49:16); “…long hair, it is a glory to her…” (1 Cor 11:15);  “The glory of…their strength…” (Pro 20:29); “…the kingdoms of the world and their glory” (Mat 4:8).

God is seeking worshipers so He designed us to NEED the presence of HIS glory with us 24 / 7. Glory is what we fall short of. And glory is what we feed ourselves with in order to make up for our falling short. Subtle forms of inner self-directed praise and our many earthly substitutions for God, demonstrate that our need is 24 /7. It never goes away and never stops.

Earthly glory is a subtle, but highly addictive substitution for the presence of God. It is the glory in earthly substitutions that make them attractive enough for us to want to feed ourselves that way. So much more of God is possible than what we currently experience.

Yet, the current reality in churches all over the world, is that one Christians glory is another Christian’s pain. When we BELIEVE we have to quench our neediness by substituting our own human glory, we easily turn on each other with vengeance because the same glory we think we have achieved for ourselves, we also think we have to protect. Even as Christians, we put each other down in order to make ourselves be more important. Sometimes, we even pride ourselves with twisted glory of how well we hurt each other. And, it grieves the heart of God that we settle for so little.

As long as we keep trying to drink from the glory of earthly things, Christians will always be divided. We will never experience the unity that is possible unless large numbers of us change sources, draw near to God, and receive the glorious presence of the Holy Spirit, intensely enough to unite us. The effectiveness of our witness depends on it.

So what can we do? God’s answer is repentance and consecration. “…Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you” (Jos 3:5); “…repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19);  “return to the Lord with all your heart, remove the foreign gods…and direct your hearts to the Lord…and He will deliver you…” (1 Sam. 7:3).

What do we repent from? The glory of God is what we are trying to substitute. So think of what God is like and repent from feeding on substitutions that are related to what He is like – in every aspect of His nature. Our power and strength. Our beauty and attractiveness. Our wisdom and what we know. What we control. Our human adequacy, and what we do. As long as we are feeding ourselves with pride from these things, our addiction is to ourselves and not to the presence of God.

How do we repent and consecrate ourselves? The first step is to teach our heart, by thanks and praise for the truth, to turn away from condemnation and guilt as tools for repentance. After that we have to teach (by thanks and praise for the truth) our heart to believe, love, and NOT be afraid of God as our source. Our HEART needs to hear and believe why and how we can draw near to God and drink His presence here, by His grace.

The book Heart-training for Kingdom Living (shameless plug) was written as a tool for people who want to consecrate themselves away from earthly sources, and to a place of drinking and receiving the presence of God.

We receive more of the Holy Spirit, every time God cleanses us. We need to recognize what is happening and by consciously adding faith to it we can go a lot farther in our experience of Him. To me, the cleansing of God is the starting point for greater spiritual skill at receiving the presence of God.

Just try to remember that when we draw near to God He draws near to us. And when we take “refuge” IN Him we “possess” the mountain of God here. So when we enter the throne room, we don’t have to go way off into heaven somewhere else. God is drawing near to us, and we are possessing the mountain of God right here around our physical body. The kingdom of God – kingdom of heaven, comes HERE so that the 2nd heaven is under our physical feet. (Some have called this, “going up through the middle of the mountain.” And, heart-training is the best way I know of to cut off our attachment to this world.)

This is a first time experience for him, and he was so full of emotion he said he didn’t know whether to cry or be happy.

I was thrilled to hear that. And, what a warrior he is. He is an older guy but has more passion than most young people. He is a real fighter. So now with better armor, I expect that I will be learning from him a lot. Mentoring always goes both ways and this all makes me very happy.

It might be a good way to keep up with what is happening.

Oh yes, if you would go to youtube and subscribe to my videos (search on “Christian mentoring heart training”) that would help increase my ratings there and other people would be able to find me there. Thanks!

->Please leave a comment by pressing the little blue comment link at the top of this post. Thanks!

My desire is to provide video instruction and encouragement to those trying to use the heart-training. In videos that follow, I will get more specific about how to use the heart-training and then how I combine the spiritual exercises in the appendix of the heart-training together with the different heart-training sections.

–>This video series = Even though you may be starting out feeling angry, deeply hurt, and holding back from God, this video series shows how to train your heart to believe and love the goodness and the grace of God for being able to receive, and abide in His presence, instead of “abiding” in what you are getting from earthly sources, sin, or from your own human glory.  If you choose to use these videos and train your heart as described, you will be doing what is the essence of what it means to make God your God. You will be “preparing the way for the Lord.” You will be applying the essence of true biblical repentance that is according to the new covenant of grace, and NOT the old covenant of works.

Changing your heart level thinking on this level will be difficult, painful (because you are dieing to feeding on earthly sources and yourself) and it will take a lot of effort on your part — but it is SOOO worth it all. You will get through it. And I want to help you and do my best to make sure that you are successful.

The basic idea with this series is to provide information about what I do when I mentor someone so that anyone can  have the same information and can apply what I teach to a much higher level. I believe the videos are necessary in order to communicate what is in the exercises effectively.

Many thanks to those who provided money for me to get the camera and software to do this. Without you, none of this would have ever been possible.

->Please leave a comment by pressing the little blue comment link at the top of this post.

Tell us your experience with heart-training good or bad. And maybe we can give some suggestions that help you go farther with it. Thanks!