Sermon Illustrations

If you have God's presence, you have favor. One minute of God's Presence can accomplish more than 20 years of your striving. - Heidi Baker

If you have never known the power of God's love, then maybe it is because you have never asked to know it - I mean really asked, expecting an answer. - Frederick Buechner

It often takes the darkness of a storm to show us the light of God's presence. - Tony Evans

The healthy Christian is not necessarily the extrovert, ebullient Christian, but the Christian who has a sense of God's Presence stamped deep on his soul, who trembles at God's word, who lets it dwell in him richly by constant meditation upon it, and who tests and reforms his life daily in response to it. - J. I. Packer

Vision is the ability to see God’s Presence, to perceive God’s power, to focus on God’s plan in spite of the obstacles. – Chuck Swindoll

The more conscious of God's presence the more I feel like being myself, the less conscious of His presence, the more I feel I need to prove myself. - R. T. Kendel

It is not the objective proof of God's existence that we want but the experience of God's Presence. That is the miracle we are really after, and that is also, I think, the miracle that we really get. - Frederick Buechner

The church for too long has followed Casper, the friendly ghost instead of seeking the fire of the Holy Spirit. We have turned limp at the thought of our own cross; we faint when we think of suffering or sacrifice. Beloved, it is time to embrace the fire of God's Presence. It is the fire that purifies our sacrifice. - Francis Frangipane

If in our Saturday pursuits we're far from God's Presence, we're not in very good shape to worship Him on Sunday. -Aiden Wilson Tozer

Worship helps us find who we are and why God has placed us here on the earth. When we bow in God's presence with worship, only then are we made complete. - Judson Cornwall

The central question is, “Are the leaders of the future truly men and women of God, people with an ardent desire to dwell in God's Presence, to listen to God's voice, to look at God's beauty, to touch God's incarnate Word and to taste fully God's infinite goodness?” - Henri Nouwen

I don't know a single person who truly seems to bear the mark of God's Presence and power in his or her life who hasn't been asked by God to be obedient in a way that was dramatically painful. - Beth Moore

Worship is a powerful witness to unbelievers-if God's Presence is felt, and if the message is understandable. God's presence must be sensed in the service. More people are won to Christ by feeling God's Presence than by all our apologetic arguments combined. Few people, if any, are converted to Christ on purely intellectual grounds. It is the sense of God's presence that melts the heart and explodes mental barriers. -Rick Warren

We don't need answers and explanations as much as we need God's presence in and through the suffering.

-Tullian Tchividjian

Retire from the world each day to some private spot. Stay in the secret place till the surrounding noises begin to fade out of your heart and a sense of God's Presence envelops you. Deliberately tune out the unpleasant sounds and come out of your closet determined not to hear them. Listen for the inward voice till you learn to recognize it. - Aiden Wilson Tozer

You know people just assume, 'Well, all my life I'll be a worrier.' That doesn't have to be true. There's a way to drink from God's Presence so much that worry begins to dissipate.

-Max Lucado

Worship ought not to be construed in a utilitarian way. Its purpose is not to gain numbers nor for our church to be seen as successful. Rather, the entire reason for our worship is that God deserves it.

(Worship) immerses us in the regal splendor of the King of the cosmos…provides opportunities for us to enjoy God’s presence in corporate ways that takes us out of time and into the eternal purposes of God’s kingdom. As a result, we shall be changed—but not because of anything we do. God, on whom we are centered and to whom we submit, will transform us by his Revelation of himself. - Marva Dawn

There are only two ways that God’s justice can be satisfied with respect to your sin. Either you satisfy it or Christ satisfies it. You can satisfy it by being banished from God’s Presence forever. Or you can accept the satisfaction that Jesus Christ has made. – R.C. Sproul

“What was it, he wondered for the hundredth time,that enabled Pastor Harris to hear the answers in his heart? What did he mean when he said he felt God’s presence? Steve supposed he could ask Pastor Harris directly, but he doubted that would do any good. How could anyone explain such a thing? It would be like describing colors to someone blind from birth: The words might be understood, but the concept would remain mysterious and private.” – Nicholas Sparks

Nothing bothers the devil more than a Christian delighting in God’s Presence. - Aiden Wilson Tozer

Prayer means that we have come boldly into the throne room and we are standing in God's Presence. - E. W. Kenyon

Solomon warned us not to rush into God’s Presence with words. That’s what fools do. And often, that’s what we do. -Francis Chan

The next time the devil tempts you to think that you are not worthy to approach God, here is what I advise: Agree. Say, “You are right. I am not worthy to approach God. I never was worthy to approach God. I never will be worthy to approach God. My access to God’s Presence is not based on my worthiness, it is based on what Christ did for me on the cross.

Greg Laurie

Prayer is nothing else than a sense of God's Presence. -Brother Lawrence

My prayer for you is that you may grow in the likeness of Christ, being real carriers of God's love and that you really bring his Presence, first, into your own family, then, to the next door neighbor, the street you we live in, the town we live in, the country we live, then only, in the whole world, that living example of God's Presence. - Mother Teresa

You'll never know Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have. Are you in the wilderness? Find refuge in God's Presence. - Max Lucado

Christ is the door that opens into God's Presence and lets the soul into His very bosom, faith is the key that unlocks the door; but the Spirit is He that makes this key. - William Gurnall

I can see now how deeply God's absence affected my unconscious life, how under me always there was this long fall that pride and fear and self-love at once protected me from and subjected me to.... For if grace woke me to God's Presence in the world and in my heart, it also woke me to his absence. I never truly felt the pain of unbelief until I began to believe.

Christian Wiman

If we must “feel” God's Presence before we believe he is with us, we again reduce God to our ability to grasp him, making him an idol instead of acknowledging him as God. - Craig S. Keener

Prayer requires that we stand in God's Presence with open hands, naked and vulnerable, proclaiming to ourselves and to others that without God we can do nothing. As disciples, we find not some but all of our strength, hope, courage, and confidence in God. Therefore, prayer must be our first concern. - Henri Nouwen

Related Sermon Illustrations

Related Sermons