{"id":9669,"date":"2024-02-03T04:24:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-03T04:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9669"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:32:27","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:32:27","slug":"the-presence-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9669","title":{"rendered":"THE PRESENCE OF GOD"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The preacher at our American Baptist pastors&#8217; retreat tonight spoke about the importance of experience in the life of our churches. He said it&#8217;s what is missing from too many congregations.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He said we can have programs and preaching and head knowledge of God, but if we don&#8217;t have His presence, something is completely off.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He spoke of sitting down to eat at a P.F. Chang&#8217;s some time ago only to be told they were out of rice.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Later he stopped at an IHOP and ordered pancakes. But his waitress said the restaurant was out of syrup.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not long after that, he walked up to the counter of a KFC and heard the cashier tell the customer in front of him that everything on the menu was available except chicken. They had run out.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This, the preacher explained, is what it&#8217;s like to enter a church which doesn&#8217;t enjoy God&#8217;s presence.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s like a Chinese restaurant without rice.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An IHOP without maple syrup.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A KFC without chicken.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It should not be possible, but it happens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The preacher at our American Baptist pastors&#8217; retreat tonight spoke about the importance of experience in the life of our churches. He said it&#8217;s what is missing from too many congregations. He said we can have programs and preaching and head knowledge of God, but if we don&#8217;t have His presence, something is completely off. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9670,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9669\/revisions\/9670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}