Seeking God

The seeking of the Lord is a continuous action. It is so continuous that you never “find” him, like you might a lost watch or the car keys. Rather, you keep seeking for more and finding out more of Him. He is an exhaustless person with endless facets.

My wife and I have been seeking each other for over 28 years. We think we know each other, and then we find something new. This is mostly because we tend to change, grow, and mature. So when we think we’ve discovered something, something new is in it’s place!

But God is different. We don’t discover more of Him because He is maturing. He never changes. He is just inexhaustible! We keep seeking because He cannot be “found out”.

What makes David cry out in Ps. 63:1 O God, you are my God! I long for you!
My soul thirsts for you, my flesh yearns for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water?

Or Paul say in Phil. 1:21 For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain?

Or Augustine say, Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in thee?

Or Frederick Faber (19TH century hymn writer and theologian) say, “Only to sit and think of God, Oh what a joy it is! To think the thought, to breathe the Name; Earth has no higher bliss."?

What makes these people appear to live on a higher plane? What makes them pursue God and delight in Him more than anything else?

I’m convinced it is this: They all had what A.W. Tozer called spiritual receptivity. We all have 5 senses with which we experience the world (i.e. sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell). But we also possess spiritual faculties with which we can “sense” God.

I think Jesus was referring to this in John 5:19 So Jesus answered them, “I tell you the solemn truth, the Son can do nothing on his own initiative, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise….”

Jesus had spiritual eyes to see what the Father was doing. He watched the Father at work and did like things. Tozer also called this “habitual conscious communion with God”.

That is what I want to encourage in you today: Habitual conscious communion with God.

I think that the only way to develop our spiritual senses is to develop a habit of communing with God, consciously, daily, and moment by moment.

If you are like me, I tend to go from one thing to the next, having different attitudes and actions, depending on the context.

Now we’re doing church and Sunday School. After this, we’ll do “lunch”, and then “nap”, and then, …whatever! (TV, reading, playing, talking, etc) We will do this until it’s time to do the church thing again.

During the week, we may do the breakfast thing, exercise thing, quiet time thing, work thing, etc. But those who have developed this spiritual receptivity, these spiritual eyes to see what God is doing, can move into that place and join Him!

How do we do it?
• Spend time with people who have it
• Read books by people who have it
• Spend time with people who want it
• Ask for it! (most importantly)

Listen to the prayer of one man I believe had "it":

O God, I have tasted Thy Goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, “Rise up, my love my fair one, and come away.” Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Suffering

What should be our automatic response to suffering? Prayer. (see James 5.13)

But what is our usual response to suffering?

• Complaining
• Anger
• Worry
• Seeking a quick fix
• Repairing grievances


But James suggests that we ought to pursue God. Take your complaints, anger, worry, fixes, grievances, to the one who is in charge!

How often have you said, when you are mistreated by some business, “Let me speak to your superior!” You want to talk to someone higher up to get some suffering to stop. Not a bad idea when you think about it. If a credit card company is not treating you fairly, talk to the boss and often you can make some progress. The person in charge may respond to your complaint. The first contact person can only follow the rules. They are given instructions on how to deal with difficulties and have no authority to bend or circumvent those rules. But a supervisor often does have that right and ability.

So maybe our problem when we suffer is not that we are complaining, but that we are complaining to the wrong person. Maybe we just need to go higher.

When we are suffering, we are to go to the highest court in the land. We are to take our suffering and all it involves, to the throne of God and find grace to help in time of need.

Recent blog: Anxiety

A few weeks ago I blogged about being through with worrying about the past and fearing the future. Since then, I've been kicked in the pants with both! Guess I'm "not" through with both!

It was as though God was saying, "So, you think you got this down?". And then everywhere I turned I was faced with anxiety. I had either done something stupid or anticipating some disaster.

Thank God that He is a patient Parent who grows us up, gradually.

Sacrifice as an expression of Gratitude

God gives us everything! We are indebted to Him for all creation and all sustaining of that creation. He asks a very small portion of his gift to us in return. This token is representative of His total gifts, but He takes it very seriously!

This is illustrated in Lev. 5.14-19 where sacrifice is to be made for failing to give God His Holy portion in worship.

We all know the disdain and disgust we feel for the unappreciative, spoiled, presumptuous attitudes of a child.

We’ve seen children making demands of parents. We’ve cringed at the actions of Dudley in Harry Potter, on the occasion of his birthday. "But there were more presents last year!"

But I have a daughter, Cait, who shows appreciation for the smallest of gifts. A couple weeks ago she was buying 3 books and was lacking some change to be able to pay the tax. I paid it for her and got a hug and a "thank you, Daddy"! Another day she bought me a soda!

We can either be like Dudley, or we can be like Cait!

When we hold back or give resentfully we are not only denying God what little token he asks, but we are ignoring the fact that it’s all His anyway!

What does it cost to give something of love to God or our neighbor...only what God has given us in the first place!

Let’s pray for each other to be able to recognize opportunities to give to God worshipfully, whether it be directly to Him or to our family and neighbors.

...and another thing the Lord is teaching me.

I'm much more valuable than I ever imagined...but I'm not near as important.

Anxiety

I've come to the conclusion that I have wasted too much energy regretting the past, both recent and distant. I have a capacity to cringe when I remember some dumb thing I said or did, whether it be 20 years ago or 20 minutes ago. It makes me tired and represents a lack of trust.

I've also come to the conclusion that I have wasted too much energy worrying about the future. A future that, by definition, hasn't happened yet! What's the point of that? Why worry about something that hasn't even happened?

I'm done with both.

My God offers forgiveness for the past and hope for the future. That is where I choose to rest.

Redemption and Atonement before Devotion and Worship

The book of Leviticus opens with a detailed description of how burnt offerings were to be administrated. These were offerings to atone for each man’s sinful nature (as opposed to guilt offerings that covered specific sins). On the heels of these instructions regarding burnt offerings follows a detailed description of how grain offerings were to be administrated. Grain offerings were not offered for redemption or atonement (Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin, Heb. 9.22). Rather, they were offered to demonstrate or represent a heart totally devoted to God in worship. Grain offerings reflected the realization that God provided all of our needs (redemption, food, clothing, shelter, and life itself). Unlike the burnt offerings, grain offerings were the product of hard labor and required the offerer to provide, not only the best of his grain and all the hard work that went into making it “choice flour”, but the addition of oil, and frankincense.
There is the picture: Worship, devotion, hard labor for God follows redemption and atonement. If we get this backwards, it will not be a “sweet smelling aroma” to God.