Presence Driven

PRESENCE

DRIVEN

PAUL ELLIS

Presence Driven

Copyright © 2022 by Paul Ellis

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN

978-1-958690-55-0 (Paperback)

978-1-958690-56-7 (eBook)

978-1-958690-54-3 (Hardcover)

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

Chapter 1Presence Lost…

Chapter 2Birthing Ishmaels

Chapter 3From Deceiver to Prince

Chapter 4The Prince, the Fugitive, and the Deliverer

Chapter 5The Strongman’s Weakness

Chapter 6A Famine in the House of Bread

Chapter 7The Trouble with Rooftop Visions

Chapter 8Digested or Vomited?

Chapter 9Preparing for the presence

Chapter 10Presence, Purpose, and Faith to Complete

Epilogue

Foreword

As I read Paul’s book, this Scripture came to my mind:

I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove, and it remained on Him. I would not have known him except that the One who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is He who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’

(John the Baptist in John 1:32-33).

This is what Paul is writing about. Everything has a purpose, but it is only when the purpose and the presence come together that we can experience the power of God at work. The initial thought that the Holy Spirit gave to Paul was, Without my presence, your purpose has no reason.

Paul takes us on a journey through some of our favorite Bible stories and shows us the unfavorable consequences of pursuing purpose without presence. Then he turns it around and shows us the outcome that happens when purpose and presence come together. The great miracles in the Bible and the stories of men and women of faith are the fruit of purpose and presence coming together and forming a perfect union.

In each of the four Gospels, the Holy Spirit is depicted as a dove. It was a dove that came upon Jesus Christ at His baptism. The dove is a shy, sensitive bird. Maybe this is why the Apostle Paul wrote, Do not grieve the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30). In this book, you will see what happens when the Holy Spirit is grieved, disconnecting the presence from purpose. When this happens, purpose becomes a struggle, and the walk of faith becomes a walk of work.

As Paul goes through the Bible stories, he shows us that there is no limit to what can be done when the purpose is presence driven. He shows you that faith is the key to retaining the connection between presence and purpose and that we must love the Promiser more than the promises.

Presence Driven unfolds a revelation that we need to be able to live empowered and purpose driven lives that produce miraculous results.

Larry Neville

President Praise Chapel International

[email protected]

Words of my mouth—

Meditations of my heart

PRESENCE DRIVEN

Preface

King David wrote in Psalm 19:14, Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to You, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.

David’s desire was that the Lord would approve of, find pleasure in, and be pleased with what he thought about; the secret thoughts and imaginations of his heart. And that He would approve of what David said, as well as, how he said it.

In Psalm 119:18, David would ask the Lord to show him wonderful and marvelous things from His Holy Word.

His prayer was that the Lord would bring revelation to him from His Word and that he would, be able to see it. But we know that in our humanity, we are capable of seeing something and still not understanding what we’ve seen.

This is why David asks the Lord in verse twenty-seven of the same chapter, to allow him to understand, or in other words, to receive revelation concerning the things the Lord had shown him.

The Psalmist here didn’t just ask the Lord to see the things of God, but he asked Him to enable him to understand them. He finishes verse 27 by stating that once he saw and understood, then, he could talk about it.

We cannot talk about what we don’t understand with clarity or confidence, although I’m certain that we’ve all made this mistake. And it doesn’t take an optometrist to see the error.

Presence Driven is the first installment in the series: Words of my mouth…Meditations of My Heart. My greatest desire in ministry is to provoke the Church of Jesus Christ to passionately pursue Him in these three areas.

1.To have passion for the Lord.

2.To have passion for His Word.

3.To have passion for His presence.

As we walk together through the pages of this book, I pray that they will inspire you to pursue these three passions, and they will enable you to apprehend God; and everything that He has for your calling, destiny, legacy, and life.

In December 2009, my father went home to be with the Lord. After his passing, the church that my wife, Val, and I were assistant pastors of thought it would be a good idea to send us on a trip to Nadi, Fiji, for what they termed ‘a little bit of ministry and a whole lot of relaxation.’

On our last day in Nadi, we were at our dear pastor friend’s home, worshipping the Lord together.

The presence of the Lord was strong that evening. There was an almost electric atmosphere of the Lord’s glory that had come into the house. In his prayer, our pastor friend said to the Lord, Let us be presence driven. As soon as those words left his mouth, the Holy Spirit ignited them in my soul: and the Lord spoke (as a matter of fact) to me, saying, You must be presence driven. He continued, Understand this: you can have purpose without presence, but you cannot have presence without purpose.

Finally, He said to me, I don’t want my Church to just be purpose driven; but with their purpose, I want them to be presence driven; because purpose cannot be achieved without presence. Without presence, your purpose has no reason.

Everyone, who has ever been born, has been born with purpose—everyone. However, purpose alone will never be a vehicle that drives a man to fulfill his destiny.

I understand that everything that exists has a reason for its existence. If it ceases to have a reason, it ceases to exist. I am confident that you can think of things in your lifetime that at one time had a purpose, a reason. But for whatever reason it could be, maybe because technology has advanced, or there was a shift in the market, or even simple economics; they were either discontinued or in some way phased out.

They became obsolete and, as a result, lost their reason to exist. We may have a purpose, even a Kingdom purpose: but without His presence, our purpose has no reason, and it ceases to exist, or we spend our lives going through the empty motions of what existence should be.

In these next few chapters, it is my desire to give you a few selected examples from the Bible of some who had purpose without presence and for us to see the result.

I also want you to see what took place when their purpose connected to the Lord’s presence: how those callings were fulfilled, destinies were shaped, and legacies were left as a testimony of the Lord’s power when purpose meets presence.

Chapter One

Presence Lost…

The first establishment of the standard of purpose being connected to presence happened in the garden with Adam. Adam was created with purpose, and he was created in the presence.

The Bible says in Genesis 2:7 that God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and then breathed into him; thus, Adam became a living soul. God initiated breath, a breath that would subsequently enable and sustain the life of mankind.

Gen2:8 says that the Lord then planted a garden in an Eastern section of an area known as Eden, and then He placed Adam in this garden.

According to Gen.1:26, 1:28, and Gen.2:15, Adam’s purpose was threefold:

Adam’s First Purpose

Adam’s first purpose was to have dominion over the earth and all its creatures. The word dominion, from Hebrew, means to rule. This meant that the first of Adam’s purposes was to be the earth’s ruler. He was the highest authority, the highest ruling power dwelling on the Lord’s earth. He was to govern it in its entirety.

Adam’s Second Purpose

Adam’s second purpose was to dress the garden. The word dress comes from a Hebrew word meaning to work, tend, and cultivate the garden, which was Adam’s role. This does not mean that Adam cleared land, tilled earth, irrigated soil, planted seeds, and worked Eden’s fields.

Gen.3:17 would suggest to us that this kind of labor came as a result of sin.

Interestingly, dress from Hebrew has another meaning. Dress also means to worship. The garden’s primary purpose was to be a place of worship for Adam and Eve, and Adam’s primary purpose in the garden was to prepare it as a place of worship.

It was to be a place where God’s presence would meet Adam’s purpose, and the result would be a release of the person, the Word, the glory, the presence, and the fullness and goodness of God. It would be a place of uninhibited fellowship between the God of heaven and His created son.

Adam’s primary purpose was to create, prepare, and establish an atmosphere in the garden, through worship, that would attract the presence of the Lord, causing him to anticipate the time when He would come down in the cool of the day and have communion, fellowship with Adam and Eve.

Adam was to make the garden a place of romance. A few years ago, I was leaving a church service in San Diego, CA. As I walked across the street to my car, I looked up into the nighttime sky, and I began to tell the Lord how much I loved Him and thanked Him for His goodness in my life. Suddenly, the Lord spoke into my spirit and said, I love the courtship process. Don’t cheat me out of it.

It was here that God began to reveal to me that He is a very romantic God; and that He loves to romance His Church. This concept of God being a romantic God might seem strange to you: maybe you’ve never thought of God being a romantic God—but the concept of Him being romantic, even hopelessly romantic, is woven throughout the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. He can’t really help Himself; you know? Romancing and being romanced is a part of His very nature, and it is the great desire of His heart.

In fact, if you stop and think about it, the Church is espoused to the Lord. We are currently in the courtship process with Him. One day, He, the Bridegroom, will come for His Bride, but until then, He courts us, and we respond accordingly.

If you were to think of God’s perfect place of romance, what kind of place would come to mind? What do you suppose it would be?

The Bible is indeed very clear in the fact that God has a favorite place of romance. His location of choice to romance His Church is…in a garden.

After He created Adam and Eve, He placed them in and romanced them in a garden in Eden.

Adam and Eve were an Archetype or a foreshadowing of the Church. And just like God came down and romanced them in Eden’s garden, the Apostle John said that Jesus, who is God, came down, became flesh, and romanced His created sons.

Jesus had a purpose: to romance as many as would receive Him and believe in His name. John said that Jesus gave those who believed and received Him the power: the right and legal authority to become sons of God. Jesus’ entire earthly ministry: His teaching, preaching, miracles, healings, etc., was a ministry of romance.

Similarly, Adam was the representation of Christ and Eve, the Church. Adam romanced Eve in the Garden of Eden, a shadowing of Christ romancing the Church in the Garden of Gethsemane. In the Songs of Solomon, the Shepherd (another embodiment of Christ) romanced the Shulamite woman (another portrayal of the Church) in a garden.

In Mark Ch.6, Jesus romanced over five thousand men and women at a fish and bread picnic in an area described as a garden. In Luke 16, Abraham’s Bosom from the Greek is described as a garden. After His death, Jesus descended into Abraham’s Bosom, where for three days He romanced the Old Testament saints and ultimately took them from this garden into His heavenly one. The Apostle Paul said in 2Cor.12:2 that he was caught up into the third heaven, which he called the paradise or the garden of God.

Adam’s Third Purpose

Adam’s third purpose was to keep the garden. The word keep from Hebrew meant to guard, protect, hedge about, be aware of, and observe. Adam’s purpose in keeping the garden was to vigilantly and diligently be on guard. He was to be constantly looking for and be aware of potential threats and prevent their intrusion into this perfect environment prepared for the worship and presence of God. This was to ensure that its purity would not become polluted or its integrity compromised.

Simply put, Adam was to keep what belonged to the garden inside the garden and keep everything else out. The words dominion, dress, and keep all define Adam’s purpose. Adam’s purpose and God’s presence were in perfect harmony until Adam let down his guard, and the serpent, subtly and craftily, slithered in.

Have you ever wondered why the serpent engaged Eve instead of Adam when Adam was the earth’s governor, dresser, and keeper? Why did he waste time with a middleman? I believe the answer can be found in what their roles signify. Adam was the governor, the dresser, the keeper—and Eve was his help-meet.

The term help-meet, from Hebrew, can be defined as the one who keeps or protects the anointing. Adam was anointed governor of the earth and given dominion over it, and Eve was anointed as Adam’s help-meet: she was the one given the charge of protecting Adam’s anointing. It was Eve’s position to protect Adam’s dominion over the earth as well as his responsibility to dress and keep the garden. I believe that is why women are more intuitive and perceptive than men. Women can see things in other people that men often miss.

In my life, there have been numerous times that Val would caution me concerning certain individuals and situations. And she was always right! Why? God created her to be my help-meet. I believe the serpent’s strategy to be fairly straightforward. If he could compromise Eve, he could destroy Adam’s anointing. Adam would go from having purpose with presence to having purpose without presence, and the result would be the knowledge of evil.

The serpent was not native to the garden. It was a foreign presence that violated and defiled the garden’s very environment and