PURSUING GOD

“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”  (Matthew 6:33 NKJV)

A number of years ago I met Phil Vischer, the creator of VeggieTales, so I decided to read his book “Me, Myself, and Bob: A True Story About Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables.” The book documents the rise and fall of VeggieTales. After VeggieTales declared bankruptcy and the dream fell apart, Phil did some soul searching. And in the book he shares some honest thoughts and questions. Let me share one question and one thought.

Here’s the question: “What do you love more, your dream or God?”

Here’s the thought: “At long last, after a lifetime of striving, God was enough. Not God and impact or God and ministry. Just God.”

Alright, I lied. Here’s one more thought: “The impact God has planned for us doesn’t occur when we’re pursuing impact. It occurs when we’re pursuing God.” 

-- Mark Batterson 

#6487

SEEKING GOD

In Genesis 26, there is a story about the Philistines filling the wells Abraham had dug with dirt and debris. Isaac reopens the wells by removing the debris, but the shepherds of Gerar stake claim to them. Then Isaac does something interesting. Instead of arguing over the old wells, he keeps digging new ones.

I don't want to stretch this analogy too far, but I think every generation needs to keep digging new wells. We can't just drink from the wells dug by our fathers. We need to dig new wells.

The 17th century Japanese Poet, Matsuo Basho, said, "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought."

Listen, I'm a conference junkie. So take this the right way. But it seems like we spend so much time and energy trying to learn from others. And that is good. But we better be investing more time seeking God because God has the key to our cities. God has the solution to our problems. God has the magic model of ministry. We don't just need good ideas. We need God ideas. You can get good ideas from a conference speaker, but God ideas come from God Himself. And one God idea is worth more than a thousand good ideas!

Keep digging! 

-- Mark Batterson

#5954

TRUSTING GOD MORE COMPLETELY

In order to trust God we must know Him in an intimate, personal way. David said in Psalm 9:10, “Those who know Your name will trust in You, for You, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek You.” To know God’s name is to know Him in an intimate, personal way. It is more than just knowing the facts about God. It is coming into a deeper personal relationship with Him as a result of seeking Him in the midst of our personal pain and discovering Him to be trustworthy. It is only as we know God in this personal way that we come to trust Him…

Pray that the Holy Spirit of God will enable you to get beyond the facts about God so that you will come to know Him better, and so be able to trust Him more completely. 

-- Jerry Bridges in “Trusting God”

#5705

LOOKING FOR GOD

“O God, You are my God; earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You; my flesh faints for You, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”  (Psalm 63:1)

Most men and women live lives of quiet desperation. But that's where we come in! It is our happy task to point out that every human desire is nothing less than a desire for God. Every impulse, every longing, every lust, every cry of the heart is but a cry after Him. "Even when men knock on the door of a brothel," Chesterton said, "they are looking for God." We are born for God's love and nothing else will do.

-- David Roper in “Seeing Through”

#5195

SEEKING GOD

“Then you will call on Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord.  (Jeremiah 29:12-14a NIV)

Come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after God.  They mourned for Him, they prayed and wrestled and sought for Him day and night, in season and out, and when they had found Him the finding was all the sweeter for the long seeking. 

-- A. W. Tozer in “The Pursuit of God” 

#5167

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Jesus said, “So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”  (Matthew 6:31-33 NIV)

Jesus is saying that more will happen, more will get done, when we put Him first in our lives. When we keep order in our daily lives, then we keep our priorities clear. Order communicates priority. As Christians, we can be really busy doing a lot of good stuff for the wrong reasons. We slip into a mind-set of doing more so that we can feel like we’re closer to God or better Christians. But if we’re not spending one-on-one, intimate time with God each day and then acting  out of the overflow of that relationship rather than the other way around, then we have lost sight of why we’re doing all that we’re doing. One thing must come first and lead to the other. The order can’t be flipped. Whatever we put first place becomes the organizing principle for the other parts of our life. 

-- Chris Hodges in “The Daniel Dilemma: How to Stand Firm and Love Well in a Culture of Compromise”

#4975

A HEART-CONNECTION WITH GOD

"Be still, and know that I am God.”  (Psalm 46:10a)

God will give us a fresh vision of Himself each day if we take time to be with Him, if we will approach Him with a quiet and expectant heart…

True life change is the result of extended periods spent sitting at our Lord’s feet, listening to His words, and seeking His face. “Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always,” Israel’s poet said (Psalm 105:4). We cannot convince ourselves of His presence; we cannot make our hearts believe and make our eyes see. He must make His reinforcing presence real. “If you seek Him, He will be found by you” (1 Chronicles 28:9).

Something very significant happens through these established times of worship: we begin to gain a heart-connection with God. We come to love what He loves. We come to hate what He hates. We come to think what He thinks. We come to see what He sees. We begin to concern ourselves with His concerns.

-- David Roper in “A Beacon in the Darkness”


#4763

WHERE THERE IS NEED, THERE IS GOD

Just as water is ever seeking the lowest depths in order to fulfill them, so is Jehovah ever seeking out [our] need in order to satisfy it. Where there is need, there is God. Where there is sorrow, misery, unhappiness, suffering, confusion, folly, oppression, there is the I AM, yearning to turn [our] sorrow into bliss whenever [we] will let Him. It is not, therefore, the hungry seeking for bread, but the Bread seeking the hungry; not the sad seeking for joy, but rather Joy seeking the sad; not emptiness seeking fullness, but rather Fullness seeking emptiness. And it is not merely that God supplies our need, but He Himself becomes the fulfillment of our need.

-- Roy and Revell Hession in We Would See Jesus


#4044

LEARNING AND TEACHING

The soul that wishes to live according to the will of Christ should either learn faithfully what it does not yet know, or teach openly what it does know. But if, when it can, it desires to do neither of these things, it is afflicted with madness. For the first step away from God is a distaste for learning, and the lack of appetite for those things which the soul hungers when it seeks God.

-- Abba Palladius as quoted by Thomas Merton in The Wisdom of the Desert


#4018

A GOD-SEEKING HEART

The Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart: (1 Samuel 16:7)


Those words were written for the haggatons of society, for misfits and outcasts.  God uses them all.


Moses ran from justice, but God used him. Jonah ran from God, but God used him. Rahab ran a brothel, Samson ran to the wrong woman, Jacob ran in circles, Elijah ran into the mountains, Sarah ran out of hope, Lot ran with the wrong crowd, but God used them all.


And David?  God saw a teenage boy serving him in the backwoods of Bethlehem, at the intersection of boredom and anonymity, and through the voice of a brother, God called, “David!  Come in.  Someone wants to see you.”  Human eyes saw a gangly teenager enter the house, smelling like sheep and looking like he needed a bath.  Yet, “the Lord said, ‘Arise, anoint him; for this is the one!’”  (1 Samuel 16:12)


God saw what no one else saw: a God-seeking heart.  David, for all his foibles, sought God like a lark seeks sunrise.  He took after God’s heart, because he stayed after God’s heart.  In the end, that is all God wanted or needed…wants or needs.  Others measure your waist size or wallet.  Not God.  He examines hearts.  When He finds one set on Him, He calls it and claims it.


-- Max Lucado in Facing Your Giants




#3707