So, are you ready to meet Him?

My prayer is that the last few chapters have opened your eyes to know that not only is meeting Jesus possible… but that Jesus wants to meet you.

How about we meet Jesus right now?

Wherever it is that you are as you are reading this chapter, you can meet Jesus right there. Whether in your car, in the break room at work, in the living room of your house, sitting down at a park bench, in your dorm room, at the library, in a coffee shop, or anywhere else that you may be, I want you to know that you can meet Jesus anywhere.

Yep. That’s right.

“I don’t need to be at church to meet Jesus?”

No, sir. No, ma’am.

While you can, and should, meet Jesus at a church gathering, whether that be in a house, sanctuary, venue, coffee shop, or more, you don’t need to be in a church or at a church event to meet Jesus. While we are on the subject, and while I have said and stand by my comments that we all need a pastor, you don’t need a priest or a pastor to facilitate your meeting with the Lord. All you need is to believe that Jesus is, reach out to Him, and know that as you move toward Him in faith, He will respond, moving Himself toward you. I promise. He will.

But it’s not just me that promises. The Bible has a thing or two to say about it, too. Take these few testimonies from the Bible on the matter:

“The Lord is near to all who call upon Him” (Psalm 145:18). “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8).

Meeting Jesus involves three important pieces:

Encounter Jesus’ presence through the Holy Spirit (we just read about this). Hear His gospel message, the good news of our salvation through Jesus. Respond to His gospel in faith, being born again.

In the following chapters, we will talk more about pieces two and three. But right now, let’s focus on number one together: encountering Jesus’ presence through the Holy Spirit.

Ready? Let’s meet Jesus.

Step 1: Let’s repent, together. Repentance is a big word that simply means to turn around… to do a 180º. This is the term they use in the military when they are marching and then suddenly, they pivot to go the other direction. This often happens at the command of someone shouting, “REPENT”! In response, everyone turns.

In a few chapters, we will learn more about the significance and essentiality of repentance as it pertains to receiving the new life that Jesus has for all of us, but for right now, let’s just get a brief grasp on it.

Repentance is where we approach Jesus humbly and honestly. First, we acknowledge that we are lost and helpless without Him. We confess that we are sinners and that we know we need Him to save us and forgive us for our sins. We express remorse and sorrow in our hearts for living our lives following our own way, and not His, as Scripture says in 2 Corinthians 7:10, that “godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation.” Jesus has invited us to follow His way that brings life. But if we are going to experience His life that comes from His way, we first have to reject our own. In doing so, we get to reject our way that leads to death and embrace His way that leads to life. The Bible says that there is a way that seems right to man, but the end of that way is death (Proverbs 14:12), but Jesus, who has invited us to reject our ways to follow His, says that He has come that we may have life, and life more abundantly (John 10:10).

In this act of repentance, we confess our sinful condition to the only One who is able to save us from it, and we ask for Him to supply us with the grace of God that provides us with the ability to receive His salvation through faith.

Are you ready to repent? Let’s do it together.

Take any amount of time that you need right here, and from the genuineness of your own heart, tell Jesus your own version of the above.

Confess your sins. Tell Him that you want to follow Him and His ways. Ask for His grace that leads to salvation.

Make sure to verbally speak these words to Jesus. I promise you’re not talking in a vacuum. Jesus is hearing every word that you speak. He has been waiting on this moment for a long time.

Ready? Go.

(Take this time to repent.)

Step 2: Let’s Meet Jesus! Now that we have repented, we are postured toward Jesus with His grace extended to us. You’ve already begun the process of meeting Him, but now we are going to take another step toward Him.

Here’s what we are going to do. It’s very simple; just follow along.

First, we are going to lift both of our hands up to Jesus like a funnel, symbolically posturing ourselves as open and ready to receive Him right into our hearts.

Next, we are going to lift up our faces to Jesus, and for the next sixty seconds (and however long after that, if you want to continue), just begin to tell Him how much you believe in Him, need Him, and are thankful for what He has done to make it possible for you to experience His presence and love. Say it in your own way, and again, make sure to say it out loud. Jesus loves to hear your voice. And please know, you don’t have to have the perfect words. Jesus isn’t looking for that. What He is looking for is your sincerity.

As you talk to Him, you’re going to begin to feel Him. Maybe this will be the first time that you have ever felt Jesus, or maybe the first time in a long time. Either way, rest assured that what you begin to feel is truly Him.

As you talk to Him and begin to feel His presence, lean into it, letting your heart continue to pursue Him. Remember, there’s always deeper in the river… just how far are you willing to let Him take you?

Ready? Go.

(Take this time to encounter the presence of Jesus.)

Did you feel Him? What did His presence feel like? Did you sense the warmth of His presence? The feeling of His love? Something you have never felt before, or haven’t felt in a long time?

My friend, that is Jesus.

I want to be very clear with you right now. You need to know this: You can encounter Jesus like this and more every single day of your life. As a matter of fact, Jesus would love nothing more.

If, as you walked through the above steps, you didn’t feel anything, I would encourage you to find a place to get alone and declutter your heart and soul and then go back and repeat the process. Go get alone with God. Maybe go outside and sit under a tree or find a park bench to sit down at. Maybe get alone in your car with some worship music lightly playing. Wherever that space is that you know you can really get away from the barrage of life, push away the cares of life, quiet your soul, and dial in your focus to seek and truly meet Jesus.

It can happen, and rest assured, not only can it happen… but it will.

Sometimes we just have to clear our minds of the clutter of life and the stresses that come along with it. The way that we live nowadays can be so emotionally frying. Our radical pace and hyper-connectivity can certainly hinder our ability to approach God as His carefree children and truly experience the depth of His presence that is available to us all.

In my thirty-one years thus far of life, I have learned that Jesus wants to meet with me far more than I want to meet with Him, and that sometimes life and the cares that come with it just seem to get in the way.

Sometimes, the hindrance is a lack of genuine repentance in my heart. If you feel that is the case for you, I would encourage you to repeat step 1. But sometimes it has nothing to do with that; instead, it’s just the overwhelming pressure of life. The stress, anxiety, pain, shame, guilt, and more of the same that seem to be ever so regular these days with news headlines blaring, tensions among people, FOMO, etc.

It may be important here to remember that it was the intensity of the emotion of shame that caused Adam and Eve to hide themselves from the presence of God. And just as shame hindered them, so can it hinder us. But not just shame. There are a lot of emotions that can get the job done.

If this describes you, let me encourage you to believe that God has truly forgiven you, and that there is nothing you can do that can separate you from His love, which is available to us all (Romans 8:35–39):

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35–39).

If the cares of life are clouding your mind, take a moment and do what Peter says in 1 Peter 5:7, “casting all your care upon Him,” truly believing that “He cares for you.”

“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:6–7)

And no, just in case you are thinking it, you are not defective. You are human. Jesus created you and knows you better than you know yourself. Just drop your guard and run into His arms like a kid does to their parent when they don’t know where else to go or what else to do. You will find safety, security, and comfort in the arms of your Father, which we learned just a little bit ago is Jesus.

Some reject the notion of having an encounter with God by calling it emotionalism, as if God isn’t the one who created us as beings designed to encounter and depend on Him, with emotions. We don’t reject the idea that there is emotion involved in encountering Jesus. Instead, we lean into it. God designed us to experience Him through our emotions. Those who discount spiritual experience because it involves emotions do so while neglecting the reality that God, who made us to connect with us, also made the very emotions that we possess.

Emotions are His genius, not ours.

In addition, a world without emotion is a world void of connection. Emotion is needed for romance, companionship, friendship, maternal and paternal bonds, and more. So, why would we discount spiritual experiences that come with emotions, as if that somehow diminishes the connection with our Creator?

Emotions don’t cheapen spiritual connection; they were made for it.

And when we cast our emotions on Jesus, throwing ourselves fully and freely into Him, emotions and all, we will experience Him more freely than ever.

So laugh, cry, shout, jump, dance, sing… whatever your soul longs to do in response to God. Why? Because you’re His creation, and He loves to see you act like He made you.

You can meet Jesus anytime, anywhere, anyplace.

Just ask David, king of Israel, who said in Psalm 139:7–10, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me.”

Reflection Questions: