How Can You Experience More of God? (When God Already Lives Inside of You)

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Are you hungry to experience more of God in your life? My guess is “Yes,” since you are reading this article. In this article, I will Biblically show you what true hunger for God looks like and then share three practical ways you can increase your desire to experience more of Him in your life.

Last week, we celebrated 20 years of revival and outpouring beginning with 1994’s Toronto Blessing. One of the phrases that became notorious during that particular era—and is continuing on with great strength—is the simple cry, “More, Lord.” This was not merely some Toronto catchphrase. I can remember watching old videos of Evangelist Steve Hill at the Brownsville Revival, praying over people, and crying out: “More, Lord!”

Let me be completely honest. At first, this “prayer” for “more of God” offended me. How are these people asking God for more of Him? I wondered. Don’t they understand that they received the Holy Spirit when they got saved? They have God living on the inside of them! To ask God for more of Himself is like thinking there is an upgrade from the Holy Spirit—which, of course, there isn’t!

Needless to say, God has opened my eyes since then—big time!

If You Have the Holy Spirit, You Are Not In Lack

If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, hunger for God is not about seeking some new blessing to come out of Heaven. The desire for more of God is not birthed in the place of lack of God; rather, it’s birthed in a perspective of fullness. A “lack” perspective believes that the Heavenly Father is actually holding out on us, placing boundaries and restrictions on how much of Him we can experience this side of eternity. The “lack” perspective—which tends to be popular in some Charismatic circles (ironically)—tries to convince God to “rend the Heavens” and send something new down out of the sky when in fact, the Holy Spirit is more interested in releasing something old out of His church.

What is the old? It is the agenda of Jesus that never changed since the Book of Acts. Souls saved. Nations ushered into the Kingdom. Systems transformed. Bodies healed. Minds delivered. Addictions broken. Jesus actually believed that His church could accomplish the Great Commission, otherwise He would not have given it to us. What fueled His confidence? It was not in our ability, but rather, in His empowering presence. Pentecost.

Jesus was so confident in the Holy Spirit, He has no trouble deploying His disciples to go into all the nations of the Earth, not only seeing people come to faith, but actually witnessing entire nations, regions and people groups discipled. Jesus would not have instituted so great a commission if the Father had planned to hold back a portion of the Holy Spirit.

The Fullness of Pentecost Is Yours to Steward

Consider how your pursuit for more of God changes when you actually believe that God Almighty lives inside of you. Because of Calvary, you have received an eternal inheritance. The presence and power of God are dwelling within your mortal frame. Your lips have been privileged to carry fiery words from the throne room. You don’t follow signs and wonders; they follow you. Everything changes when you embrace a “fullness” perspective. This view actually intensifies your pursuit of more of God, for you are no longer waiting on Heaven to send something down. Instead, you are compelled to press in to the Holy Spirit and the Holy Scriptures to discover how to steward and live out what you have already received.

The moment you were born again, you received everything you would ever need to live a powerful, transformative Christ-following life on Earth.

Paul reminds us that “the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11).

Be Shaken By a Fresh Filling

Consider Acts 4:23-31, a popular portion of Scripture that people reference about pursuing more of God or a receiving “fresh filling.” To summarize the context, after experiencing a very intense warning not to speak or teach in Jesus’ name, Peter and John return to their fellow disciples, join together, and offer up a unified prayer for boldness in the midst of persecution. One of their requests is for an outpouring of signs, wonders and healing—demonstrations of the outstretched hand of God in their midst.

This brings us to verse 31, where we read “And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.” Notice that Pentecost was not repeated. Nothing new came down from Heaven. Instead, the text would lead us to believe that something rose up and was released out of the disciples—those offering up prayers for “more.”

The disciples’ fresh filling with the Holy Spirit directly correlated to the building’s physical shaking. Two houses were shaken after that prayer. The text directly describes the building where they met, but also, their bodies were shaken that physically carried the presence and power of God. Something new rose up within them. Fresh fire. Supernatural boldness. The presence of God was already living inside of them.

They didn’t need an upgraded Holy Spirit; rather, they desired an expression of Christianity that was in greater agreement with everything that Jesus modeled, demonstrated, and promised to them.

There Is More of God For You To Experience  

The song of Heaven as revealed in Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8 is all the evidence you need to conclude that there is more of God for you to experience.

Consider the angels’ eternal cry. They don’t sing “Holy, holy, holy” because they have a limited, finite vocabulary. If anything, Heaven’s vocabulary—“tongues of angels”—is infinitely superior to anything we can muster up here on Earth. That must tell you something about the vastness and brilliance of Almighty God. The angels, with every conceivable word and syllable at their disposal, simply cannot graduate beyond “Holy.” I have to believe that even if the host of Heaven were getting ready to move on to some other word or phrase to describe just one aspect of God’s divine nature, an ever-so slight movement on His end would, all of sudden, subject their gaze to an entirely new dimension of His expansive frame to respond to. It’s back to “Holy, holy, holy,” all over again.

The God Who is eternally worshipped by the angels—a choir of Heavenly host that cannot transition past one single word to describe His infinite glory and beauty—is your God.

There is more of Him for you to see and in turn, more of Him for you to respond to in worship. A “boring” Christian life suffers a horizontal gaze. If we were truly lifting our eyes above the mountains and above the distractions of life, intently looking upon Him, our attention would be captured and fascination awakened.

Your Increased Hunger for God is His Promise to Reveal Himself

God is not in the business of awakening appetites within you that cannot be satisfied since He is not a man that He should lie (see Num. 23:19). Your God wants you to experience more of Him so that, in turn, you can represent His nature with greater accuracy and clarity to the world around you.

Where is your appetite for more of God awakened?

The Presence. When you engage God’s presence, whether it is through worship, during a meeting, or alone in your closet, you collide with One Who is limitless, eternal, and infinite. Such encounters awaken us to ultimate reality. The God within you is greater than anything. What you are presently experiencing of Him is only a taste of what is available. This should not disappoint. Only in the Kingdom does this paradigm actually make sense. You “taste and see” that God is good. The present measure of His Presence satisfies, but it also leaves you hungry for more. Only in His world does eating make you hungrier, and this hunger satisfies.

The Word. Start in Hebrews 11 and then 2 Corinthians 3:7-18. The key is reading without any distraction, and by distraction, I mean the religious voice that so faithfully whispers in our ears, “Yeah, but those types of experiences with God were for the special people. The saints. The heroes. The ancestors. The forerunners. The forefathers. They aren’t for you today. Christianity is nothing more than going to church, reading a Book, living a good life, and going to Heaven when you die.” This is the lie of religion. If you genuinely believe in Christ, sure you will go to Heaven when you die, but the shame is neglecting the power of Heaven you can experience today. Scripture reveals what is available to every man or woman willing to say “Yes” to God.

The people listed in Hebrews 11 “Great Hall of Faith” were not extraordinary individuals. They were ordinary people who caught a glimpse of the extraordinary God and were absolutely ruined for the mundane. When we read the Old Testament side by side with the writings of Paul (such as 2 Corinthians 3:7-18), we are reminded that what they experienced back then, we can experience today. And a step further, we have something that those under the Old Covenant did not, and that is the indwelling Presence of God. As a result, we should expect greater levels of glory and encounter.

The Testimony. When you hear or read about the great works and wonders of God, you are challenged by this fact: there is more and real people throughout history have experienced the “more” of God. This is what makes a revivalist. I am truly convinced that continuous exposure to testimony is one of the key characteristics of a history-making man or woman of God. They are not extraordinary. They are everyday people who become gripped by these glimpses of what God has done, and cannot press on with life as normal until they see the God Who invaded the past, invade the present and transform the future. This is what testimony does to you.

We never graduate beyond hunger, for the moment we stop being hungry for more, we have concluded somewhere in our minds that “I have experienced all there is of God.” This is absolutely impossible!

Larry Sparks About Larry Sparks

Larry Sparks is host of Life Supernatural, a weekly radio program that features bestselling authors, emerging filmmakers, and key ministry leaders. In addition to serving as the Director of Curriculum Resources for Destiny Image Publishers, Larry is president and founder of Equip Culture Ministries—an organization that equips believers with tools and resources to experience a life of sustained victory through the supernatural power of God. He lives in Florida with his wife and daughter. You can visit his website at www.lawrencesparks.com and follow him on Facebook Larry Sparks or on Twitter @LawrenceVSparks.