Well, with me today in person in the studio here
at Charisma Headquarters is one of our new authors,
Chris Garcia, who we met virtually
because of his YouTube channel,
where he spends time leading people
into the presence of the Lord in private worship,
in private time with the Lord,
which is something that you can't do
in a big environment normally.
He's done that.
We're gonna talk about that in a little bit.
But that intimate time with the Lord
is something that we're always trying to learn.
How do we get better at?
How do we spend more time with the Lord?
How do we make our time more with the Lord more effective?
And how do we hear the voice of the Lord
in such powerful ways?
And so Chris, it's great to have you here in person
to be able to talk about this.
Your book, Fresh Oil, will be coming out this fall.
Super excited about that.
Excited, very excited.
I know that it's gonna bless a lot of people,
and God's gonna move through that book.
I'm believing that the book will excite the spirit
to be alone with the Lord, which is the whole purpose,
just to be with him.
Let's talk about this being alone with the Lord,
because we know throughout the scriptures,
the Lord has called people to be alone with him,
whether it's Elijah going to the cleft of the rock,
or David had to go, he was obviously being chased,
but he had time in the wilderness.
The children of Israel as a group, as a congregation,
they had to be into the wilderness,
but that's the glory of the Lord took them there.
And of course, we know that Jesus went alone
to be with the Lord.
I believe that in our modern day and age,
we're so longing for community,
that in our quest for community, we often devalue
our community with God.
Right.
Let's talk about that and how the glory of the Lord
comes out.
Well, absolutely.
So like the first and highest ministry
that the believer is called to,
is to minister directly to God.
The Bible says in Revelation chapter one,
it says that Jesus has called us to be a kingdom
of priests unto our God.
That's echoed from second Peter,
and that's also echoed back to the original.
I believe it's in Deuteronomy or in Numbers,
one of those in the Old Testament.
But basically, what does it mean to be a priest?
A priest is someone who stands to minister directly to God.
And for us, we have Jesus in us.
We're born again of the Spirit,
and the highest ministry is to minister to him as a priest.
When we use terms like priest or kings,
this is symbolic language for someone
who stands with the Lord.
What marked Jesus's ministry, his powerful ministry,
yes, he casted out devils, he healed the sick,
he raised the dead,
but there was a relationship between Jesus's prayer life
and the power of the Spirit and activation,
so much so that the disciples were like,
Master, teach us to pray.
They saw a relationship between his alone time
with the Father and his public ministry of power.
What we also see is, for example,
Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 24,
I believe is in, no, or Exodus 24,
scripture says, the Lord spoke to Moses and he said,
come up to the mountain and be there,
and I will present to you the tablets of instructions
and the testimonies of the covenant,
but God says, come up to the mountain and be there.
Scripture says, be still and know that I am God.
The person of God, the man or woman of God
is called to be with the Lord,
and unfortunately we've deduced prayer
to a list of things that we have to do,
or we've deduced it to a chore or a list
or different things like this,
but it's more important that we have God's attention
and that he has our attention and that we are with Jesus.
We are with the Lord.
The scripture says, and I believe in 1 John,
John the apostle, he says,
that which we have seen with our eyes,
which we have held, that which we have handled,
the word of life, him, we declare to you.
We are to come from a place of experiencing God
and declare that which we have seen.
And so unfortunately in Christianity,
especially in the West, we've reduced it to formula
and it's spiritual.
Like we're supposed to connect with God.
It's relational.
And so community is important.
We need community, absolutely.
We need relationships,
but we can't forget communion with Jesus.
And everything should stem from that place.
It's a true community is found
in the communion of Christ first.
When I say communion, I'm not necessarily talking
about bread and wine.
I'm talking about the actual word communion.
What does that word mean?
It means the shared feelings and thoughts
expressed one to another.
You and I are called to share space with God.
Where his thoughts become our thoughts,
his feelings become our feelings.
That's oneness.
And the great mystery that's in,
what is it?
Colossians chapter one, verses 26 and 27 is Christ and you,
the hope of glory.
He's the final hope of glory.
The glory of God that resided in the wilderness,
in the tabernacle, the glory of God that transitioned
from the tabernacle to the temple.
That very glory became man, it's Jesus.
And now through the Holy Spirit,
that same Jesus is in the church, is in us.
That's where the glory of God resides.
And I think conferences are powerful.
And I've been a part of them and I speak in them
and I love doing them.
I enjoy them very much,
but we have to get back to a place of coming back
to the Lord first love, loving him,
ministering to him directly,
have the priority to be the secret place and to seek him
and to seek his kingdom.
And all of those things will be added to us.
Yeah, you know, Chris, there's so many distractions
in this day and age and we just scroll on our devices.
And a lot of times we don't know how to be alone anymore.
We don't know how to just sit and be still.
And that is something that I try to practice
in my own life where it's like,
oh, I could be on my phone doing something,
but let me just stand here.
Like waiting in line, like we used to actually have to wait
in lines and be like alone with our thoughts.
Now we don't have to do that.
And so we've gone to the same,
we basically put the same principles in with God
where it's, you know, we're not spending the time
with the Lord alone,
where we're almost uncomfortable being alone with him.
Now there's, how do we deal with that uncomfortableness
with being with the Lord?
Yeah, it all goes back to the level
of your knowing of the Lord.
And so like, for example, if you've met someone
that you just met and you are in the car with a person
that you hardly know and there's moments of silence,
that's really awkward.
That's really uncomfortable.
Why?
Because you don't know that person.
But now flip the script to your spouse.
You can drive an hour without saying anything,
just enjoying the moment.
Why?
Because you know that person.
And I think a lot of people are uncomfortable
with being with the Lord is because that level
of knowing him hasn't fully yet developed.
And I think that the more you pursue knowing him,
those moments of awkwardness go away because you know him.
Sometimes it's hard to be still
and it's not necessarily just that it's
because you may not know him.
It's that you don't know, the person may not know how to.
And so, for example, the first five minutes
you spend time being alone, it might feel really weird
because it's like, I'm used to getting my phone out.
I'm used to doing all these things.
But I tell people in order to develop a deep prayer walk
with God, it simply starts with setting the Lord before you.
So like when you're in line,
put your attention on him for just a few moments.
When you're driving, put away the distraction
or the care for just a second and just acknowledge him.
And these little acknowledgements throughout the day
become an invitation to a greater awareness
of the presence of God.
And for me, I used to struggle so much in the area of prayer.
I didn't understand how people can spend like an hour
or two praying, like, what are you doing?
What are you saying?
But the more you learn to acknowledge the presence
of God throughout your day, the more it becomes natural
to slip into a deeper prayer walk.
And some people have a hard time
because they're comparing themselves.
Well, I don't have a prayer life like brother so-and-so
or sister such-and-such, but it's just more about
just learn to acknowledge him throughout your day.
And then it grows, it becomes easy.
Prayer shouldn't be a chore.
Prayer is easy.
Prayer is just turning your attention to the Lord.
That is prayer.
You don't even have to say anything.
It's more about just being with him to enjoy him
for the sake of being with the Lord.
And for me, I used to think like prayer was,
I have to pray this way, have to get on my knees
and save this and try.
No, it's more about enjoying the present time
with his presence.
Think about the word, the presence of God.
What is the presence of God?
It's God being present with you in the present moment.
And we have to learn to do that.
And so sometimes it's hard because our minds
are so preoccupied, but when we learn to acknowledge
those little baby steps, it starts to grow
and it becomes an enjoyment.
Prayer should be something that is not a bondage,
it's an enjoyment.
Yeah.
You know, Chris, you're here because you've written a book
and that book is gonna be coming out this fall
and we're excited about that.
And it's called Fresh Oil.
That's part of the ministry that you have
where you're on YouTube a couple of times a week
and you are leading people into the presence of the Lord.
And what has come out of that has,
there's been some powerful prophetic moments
that's led to us connecting.
And then now it's led to this book.
Tell everybody what it is that they're gonna get
from this book.
Yeah, absolutely.
So the Fresh Oil Secrets to Intimacy with the Holy Spirit
is just different keys and secrets that the Lord
has given me throughout the years to teach
on how to spend time with God.
And so I don't wanna give away all of the details
in the book, but there are things that the Holy Spirit
has taught me in my personal walk with him
that I felt in my heart to share in book form
where it will be a blessing to you.
So if anything, the aim of the book is less informative
and more impartational.
If it leaves you with wanting to be a part of it,
to be alone with God, then that's pretty much
why we're doing the book.
So yeah, it's Fresh Oil comes from Psalm 92 10,
where it says, you've anointed my head with oil.
It says, no, I'm sorry.
You have exalted my horn like a wild ox,
which is a symbol of strength.
And you have anointed me with fresh oil.
God wants to anoint you with fresh oil.
Fresh oil for what?
The fresh oil of his presence.
We, the Bible says in Proverbs 20 27,
that the spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord,
searching all the innermost parts.
The vessel of a lamp is a container that contains oil.
And so it's all symbolic for the stewarding
of the Holy Spirit in your life and prayer.
And as you grow in prayer, you grow in sensitivity.
And as you grow in sensitivity,
you grow in power in the spirit.
And so that is pretty much the premise of the book,
what the book's about.
It's all about coming back to these little keys
that we're spiritual first.
Like we're living in a day and age, John,
where people want to be spiritual without having Christ.
Yeah, that's very true.
But Christ is inviting us by Christ
and for Christ to return back to being spiritual for Christ.
And that's what the book is about,
a return to cultivating intimacy with the spirit,
different things that the Holy Spirit has taught me
throughout the years to deepen my walk with him.
Recently, I was just reading through the New Testament
and came across where Jesus talks about new wine
versus old wine.
Oh yeah.
And how new wine can't be put into old wine skins.
That's true.
And just like a new patch of cloth
can't be sewn onto an old patch
because it's gonna cause tears.
But the wine symbology really stuck with me,
more so this time, just for different reasons,
because I really want the presence of the Lord,
the Holy Spirit, the infilling of the Holy Spirit
in my life of fresh, that fresh oil, that fresh wine.
I'd like to talk about the whole concept of that wine,
that new wine going into the new wine skins.
And because Jesus talks about how those that have tasted
the new wine, they still want the old.
But whenever you're talking about wine,
it's oftentimes the wine that has been aged
that is the most valuable.
So I've been mulling this over,
okay, God, we're supposed to desire the new wine,
but the old wine we know is still good
and actually has value.
I've been kind of looking at this as,
is this kind of like new in fillings and old in fillings
and rather than comparing and contrasting, I don't know.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on that passage.
Yeah, so I'll start off with the new wine.
The symbolism of the Holy Spirit is oil, a dove, flame.
Another symbol is wine.
And wine is so powerful because just the story
of how wine becomes wine, there's an element
to prior to that as well.
Like for example, you start off with grape juice,
but the grape juice has to ferment,
but that fermentation to become wine takes time.
Well, even before that, the grapes have to be picked.
The grapes have to come from the vine, the true vine.
And then they have to come and then they have to be picked
and then they have to be crushed and bruised and broken.
And the juice has to then be forced out.
It doesn't come out by itself.
That's right, yeah.
And that's a whole preaching right there.
That's a whole preaching right there.
But once you have that callus or that vessel for wine,
there's time that needs to be spent.
And in order for that fermentation to settle,
it must take time.
And if you want the new wine of the Spirit,
you have to spend time just sitting there.
So new wine is not grape juice.
It's allowed to have fermentation.
Yes, there's fermentation.
We're not talking about alcohol so much
as we're talking about the presence of the Lord
and letting that ferment in your life.
Absolutely, 100%.
And the scripture says, do not be drunk with wine,
which is an excess, but be filled with the Spirit.
Well, he's correlating wine with the filling of the Spirit.
Again, that fermentation, that has an aspect of changing
the way you talk and walk.
The Holy Spirit does that.
The Holy Spirit should cause you to walk and talk
and maneuver yourself in a newer and vibrant way
as opposed to the worldly wine.
So there's many relationships there.
But one of the things is this,
is when Jesus is talking about old wineskins versus new wine
is this concept of if you put new wine
into an old wineskin, that wineskin will burst
because of the energy and the air
and the process of the wine.
It will completely just tear that thing open.
And in order for you to preserve the new wine and the skin,
you have to have a new skin.
And so for me, Jesus is speaking concerning
the old religious system versus the new kingdom,
the kingdom that is at hand.
But also it can be translated into the life of the believer.
You want to have the new freshness
of the wine of the Spirit.
You've got to have a new wineskin.
You've got to have a new renovated mindset of the Spirit.
They that mind the things of the flesh
will from the flesh reap corruption,
but they that mind the things of the Spirit
will from the Spirit reap life everlasting.
New wine is received and sustained by a new wineskin.
And that new wineskin is the renovation of the mind
to renew in the Spirit of your mind.
That is enabling you to sustain what God wants to do.
Many times God wants to do something new
and vibrant in our life,
but we can miss out on it with an old mentality.
It kind of reminds me of in Isaiah where it says,
behold, I will do a new thing, shall you not perceive it?
And so in order for us to receive the new
and sustain the new and maintain in the new,
we've got to allow the new thing to renovate us.
We've got to allow the power of the meditative words,
the scriptures meditating on that causes us
to have a new mindset and then allow the Spirit
to pour into us to give us that new wine.
Communion with God is eating and drinking,
meaning you consume the bread, which is the word of God.
Man doesn't live off of bread alone,
but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God
and the Spirit, which is meant to be drunk,
is meant to drink in, you need food and water to survive.
In the Spirit, you need very much the same.
You need the word of God to renovate your mind
that you need the Spirit of God to take you afresh
and bring into new waves of glory.
And the thing is, is that the Lord is never stagnant.
He's always gonna bring you from glory to glory,
from faith to faith, from new wine to new wine.
And so that's what I would say to that.
Yeah.
That's a good answer.
You know, I've loved just thinking about this whole process
and I've heard that if you can actually take an old wine skin
and make it new by soaking it and beating it,
kind of like you would like a baseball glove, you know,
you make it pliable.
So I've always just tried to make sure
that I don't get rigid.
Right.
Because when we get rigid, then we break.
Yeah.
We gotta stay pliable.
That's right.
Let's talk about the presence of the Lord
and how it causes us to bend.
Yes.
And how we need to be able to carry the glory
so it doesn't break us.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
This is why waiting upon the Lord is so important.
The scripture says,
they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings of eagles.
And this is why I like to use the term soaking
in his presence because that's what prayer is.
I like to liken it to this,
like you take a cold freeze dried steak,
it's rigid, it's cold.
What do you need to do?
You need to turn on the hot faucet,
let the water soak in that,
let that sit there for a little bit.
And in time, it'll soften.
It's the same, our hearts apart from the spirit
will naturally be disposed to being carnal and cold.
And so we need to take that attentive time
to get under the fountain of life, which is the Lord,
and just sit there.
And that soaking will cause a pliability.
Our hearts will be softened.
I can't tell you how many times,
and I'm telling on myself,
I can't tell you how many times
I've allowed hardness to enter into my life
because of busyness or other things that have crept in,
it happens, it's the cares of life.
That's so easy in life.
And so I can't tell you how many times I have felt that.
And I've had to be like, Lord, help me love you,
help me grow in sensitivity
because I am not feeling this right now.
But when you spend intentional time
and you throw yourself on God,
and you sit with him, he will shift your heart.
Amen.
And God will do it, and he's faithful to do it.
So maybe for whoever is watching,
maybe you feel like you've once loved the Lord,
but you no longer desire him the way you did.
Well, tell him that.
Ask him to give you the desire to desire him.
It takes, as my friend Eric Gilmore says,
it takes God to want God.
It takes God himself to desire God.
Once you taste the Lord, you want him more and more.
And it's so easy for the flesh to kick in
and for us to forget the Lord, even though we know him,
sometimes we can forget that sweet touch and embrace
and communion of the Spirit because life hits us.
And so we've got to throw ourselves
under the fountain of water and just sit there.
Sometimes you don't even have to do anything.
That's a revelation right there.
Sometimes you don't have to do anything.
Just be there.
We're so conditioned to not sit still.
We're so conditioned to not be in our thoughts
or to not let ourself actually process.
We're just busy, busy, busy, busy, busy all the time.
That's powerful right there.
Yeah, there is something to that because the scripture says,
it's not by might nor by power, but it's by my spirit.
And so it's the spirit of the Lord that moves upon your heart
to desire the Lord and go after the Lord.
I used to have such a hard time connecting with God
because I've allowed my heart to just,
because of the busyness of life,
to really, really hard to spend time with God.
But I learned if you just be with him,
just solitude with the Spirit will soften the heart.
And it's his spirit doing it.
The more you get out of the way and the more you decrease,
the more he increases.
Absolutely.
And it's supposed to be, what's the word?
Effortless is the word.
And I love that on your YouTube channel,
what's your schedule for that?
Yeah, so it's Monday, Wednesday, Friday
at 7 a.m. Central or 8 a.m. Eastern.
And we spend time in the presence of the Lord
and we spend like an hour and a half just sitting still,
putting on some worship and just being still.
And it's so funny, because we'll get so many people,
I need this, I need that, help me.
And we purposefully don't give attention there.
We give attention to the Lord.
And then we will respond to a prayer we got.
But it's to teach people how to be still.
Because sometimes we need examples, sometimes we don't know.
And so the Lord told me about two, three years ago,
people don't know how to spend time in my presence.
And I just want you to just show by example,
show and tell, just lead by example.
And so we do that, Monday, Wednesday, Friday,
7 a.m. Central, 8 a.m. Eastern.
Spend time in the presence of the Lord.
And then you can search for us,
you can search for Chris Garcia,
or you can search for Fresh Oil.
And it's there on YouTube.
That's wonderful.
And I definitely recommend that you check that out.
You join Chris for those Monday, Wednesday, Friday sessions
because they are powerful.
And block out the time.
Don't let yourself just have it playing in the background.
This is an opportunity for you to engage with the Lord
and be led in that experience.
And to be not just an experience, in that practice.
Because we need to practice the presence of the Lord.
And that is such an important thing that we neglect so much.
And Chris, I'm gonna ask you to just pray
for everybody that's watching right now.
Would you just pray for them
that they would encounter the Lord in a special way today?
Father, we just come before you, Lord,
in Jesus' mighty name.
And I lift up every person, Lord, that's listening.
And I ask you, Lord, that you would begin to draw them in.
That you would begin to woo them by your presence, Lord.
Lord, that they would begin to see and to taste
that you are good, Lord.
And I just pray that you would cause a deep yearning
of the Spirit, that it's not by might,
it's not by efforts or our own strength.
It's by the gentle grace of your Spirit,
that you're leading, that you're guiding,
that you're feeding, that you're instructing.
Father, I pray for a spirit of wisdom and revelation
in the area of your very glory,
just to overtake everyone watching.
And that you would cause the hunger to arise.
If there's anyone that has lost their first love,
I pray that they would recover their first love.
If there's anyone that their hunger has waned
and they've lost the desire to be with you,
I pray that you would quickly recover that
and fan into flame those lost desires, Lord.
And Father, I thank you, Lord God,
that you would just impart by your Spirit, by your grace,
the desire to seek your face,
to be at that place, Lord, of surrender,
and just humbling.
And I just thank you Father, that you're doing that,
even now, in Jesus' precious name.
I thank you for your sweet anointing, Lord.
Your anointing is present.
I thank you that that anointing rests
on every single individual,
breaking every yoke of bondage,
bringing us to fullness of who you are
and who we are in you, in Jesus' name, amen.
Amen, amen, Chris Garcia,
I'm so glad that you've got a book with us now.
I'm so glad that you're part of the family here at Charisma.
And it's been a pleasure to be able to sit with you
in person.
Amen, same here.
I'm excited to be here.
It's been, I'm excited to be part of the Charisma family.
Amen. Amen.
God bless you, brother. God bless you.