Author: Lisa Groen
Category: Devotional and prayer
Christianity would be a meaningless religion if it were nothing more than what some say it is—a way to “get on God’s good side with my good works so I can earn my way to heaven”. It would fall apart if that were its depth of reality. It would be a heathen religion if that were its description. Why–you ask? Because there is no eternal or transcendent power in the power that comes from me alone. We become our own idol when we put our works as a ticket to gaining the benefits of salvation. And it offends the grace of God. However, God calls us to seek Him with all our hearts!
Do you feel the tug on your heart to draw near to God? Have you looked at times hoping to see great progress in your witness but the emptiness in your witness calls you to seek him? Have you looked at times hoping to see growth and healing in your relationships, but the brokenness of your relationships calls you to seek him?
Now, I am not talking of using God to gain a successful life. And I am not speaking of a relationship with God in order to make life easy. But what is God’s goal in telling us to seek him? Do you know God said he would come when we seek Him? How often do we seriously aim to make it a goal to dwell with God verses simply trying to pray for God’s help? What does it mean to “abide with Christ”? Is it something we can swiftly turn on with an “On” switch in our prayer life? This is not simply talking about not rushing through prayers and not rushing through Bible studies. Abiding with Christ is more than a passionate seeking of a God who told us to seek him with all of our hearts. It is a square look at what we are not and a deep surrender of the painful bent of the world’s imprint upon my soul. Again, how do I tell if I have sought God with all of my heart? What am I to wrestle with? I have to come to the end of myself in some way to truly seek him in truth from that barrenness!! I must see the emptiness of my earthly strength and power for a desperation to arise out of my deficits! We put a short in our relationship with God when we cringe away from our barrenness and deficits and run to spiritual band-aids and aspirins, and quick one liner or two liner prayers and short glances at our spiritual bankruptcy as if it had no impact on us and if it didn’t matter that much anyway because “God’s sovereignty would just fix everything automatically”!
We shift off our brokenness quite easily because we think our deficits make us look bad. And they do! But we shortchange God of opportunities to fill us up when we don’t surrender our flesh to his filling us and to his power. Paul Washer tells of how God loves us in his video “The Way God Loves You”:
–”It is so easy to learn principles about holiness, it is so easy to learn attributes of God as they’re set forth in statements, but how many men are so sick and tired of not being in the presence of God that they are willing to depart from absolutely everything and if it means running like a wild man through the woods for a week, throwing rocks at heaven, they will not rest until the presence of God is real in their life. I warn college students all the time Dr. Piper has a tremendous following among college students and I’ll hear college students preaching some of the things that …preaching…lets even go back farther… preaching some of the things Edwards wrote. And I tell them, you’re nothing more than a parrot—You’ve memorized what Edwards says but you don’t know what he knew. And you’ve never been in the presence of God like him, you’ve never tarried in prayer! You know nothing of the prayer life of David Brainerd. Dew has never fallen on your head although you’ve read his diary a thousand times. And one of the greatest reasons why ungodliness even among the people of God is because many times we’re nothing even though we stand in a pulpit we’re little boys parroting things from other men! Our ears have heard about him, but our eyes have not seen him! That would be offensive to you only if it’s true! How much time do you spend in the presence of God?! How much time do you lay before Him? How much time do you pull away from everyone else and even from your studies dear brother do you throw yourself down before him and seek his face?!…You’re going to become nothing but a bunch of cold principles if the presence and power of God is not in your life….Song of Solomon 4:8 says …come down to me…from those high proud independent places of yours where danger lurks…”
From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo6b4dckj5A
The Song of Solomon Bible book was written through the vessel of a man who ended up needing it quite desperately! Solomon drifted gravely from God! Oh how his life would have been different if he would have sought deeply what intimacy the Lord God was seeking to make known to him! I don’t think he squarely perceived the gravity of the importance of this intimacy God was speaking to him about! On the website https://bible.ucg.org/bible-commentary/1-Kings/Solomon-turns-from-God;-Adversaries-raised-up/ It is explicitly stated that Solomon turned away from God “when he was old” (1 Kings 11:4). First Kings 11 begins by succinctly stating the cause of Solomon’s idolatry: “But King Solomon loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh: women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, and Hittites…. He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart.” …many of Solomon’s wives and concubines were undoubtedly the result of foreign alliances, as was the custom of the day. God knew these customs, and He commanded Israel’s kings not to engage in them.” So, it boils down to the customs of the day and his own lusts were taking a toll on Solomon, Solomon had God’s word, and ignored parts of it, and faced the grave consequence of drifting from God.
Let us not make the same mistakes Solomon did! We have more than the tools Solomon had for intimacy with God! Let’s make use of all we have and cry out to God in our real brokenness, barrenness, and desperate spiritual bankruptcy and cry out till we are assured of nearness to our one and only God and Savior! We have no earthly good to travel with us to heaven! Amen!
Prayer:
Lord, as we are recognizing our powerlessness, and the possible danger of just becoming a bunch of cold principles apart from Your nearness and power, may we sense your pull on us to seek you with all of our hearts! May we take serious time day after day, even week after week or month after month till we find you and till we empty ourselves of ourselves, and wait before the fountain of living waters for a fresh and abiding baptism, and seek you with eyes wide open to catch a glimpse of your heavenly face of love! Till we see you and imbibe on you and become utterly transformed in our faith and in the expression of our lives Oh God may we learn to abide in your presence until our zeal and love for you truly becomes fresh and awakened in Your power and might! We pray these things in your gracious name Oh Lord! Amen and amen!
Keep growing in the Word! LG
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