August 13, 2020 NO OTHER WAY
Jeremiah 29:13 “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”
Matthew 6:33 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
John 14:21 “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”
Matthew 7:8a “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”
Sometimes we forget the basics. The most basic truth, the truth we must not stray from is that of seeking Him first, with all of our hearts. Unless we do just that, we will not experience Him in a significant way. This may sound alarming, but in a very real sense, God hides Himself, waiting to be sought after, and waiting to be found. In our day and time, there is much emphasis placed on certain things we must do if we are to be ‘good’ Christians. We are convinced that if we do the right thing, then God will work in our lives and will be pleased with us; if we go through the routines of prayer, bible study, church attendance, giving, and etc., we believe that we are then living the Christian life. Also, we may tend to think that if we do what the scriptures tell us to do, things will get better-even though we may not be seeking Him with all of our heart. Often, in marriage counseling, the emphasis is on the husband and wife doing certain things in order for their relationship to improve. Don’t misunderstand, it is a good thing to do the things God says in His word to do, but even though we may do the ‘right things,’ we still will not experience the fullness of God and will not truly find Him unless He is the desire of our heart. Let us not fall into the trap of trying to improve our life by simply obeying the scriptures. A key point for us to know is that being precedes the doing. In other words, as we discover who we are in Him, as we begin to discover how wonderful and awesome He is, we will find that it is our nature and our desire to do the things that please Him and also blesses others. The old adage of ‘not getting the horse before the cart’ is another way of saying this. One might wonder how do we seek Him with all our heart-what does it look like to do so. All I can say to that is that it is a matter of the heart-what is our heart’s desire; is finding and having ‘my way’ the most important thing-the thing that drives me, or is my greatest desire to know Him. It starts with knowing and remembering that God, our Father, created us, that He sent His Son to save us, that He calls us to Himself, and that only He holds the keys to life. There are times when we realize that our desire for Him has waned; in such times the doing-whether we feel like it or not-is important; we may need to stir up the gift of God which is in us, 2 Timothy 1:6-7, and we may need to be renewed in the spirit of our mind, Romans 12:2. God did not make us robots; we have the power of choice. We can turn our thoughts and our hearts to the things of God; we can draw near to Him. God is desiring that we find Him and experience Him and He will gladly reveal Himself to us when He is the desire of our heart. The things I mentioned above-bible study, prayer, church attendance, and giving, or all good things; just let them be a result of knowing Him and having Him as our chief desire and not an attempt to make our life better or to earn His approval.
James 4:8a “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”
Blessings, Buddy
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