“you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.”- Deuteronomy 4:29
“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”- Jeremiah 29:13
I’m awesome with routine. My spiritual checklist is almost always, if not all the time, neatly marked off. I read my Bible, pray and listen to sermons everyday. But if I’m completely honest with myself, as of late, seeking God has not really been my intent when I “seek God”. That’s kind of confusing, I know, but stay with me.
You know that cliche quote….”going through the motions”? I hate cliches, but this one hits the nail on the head. My intentions behind my bible reading and prayer lately have not been so much to find and soak in the presence of God, but I think more of an attempt to attain just enough peace and sanity to get me through my day…. and to keep myself guilt-free, of course. There’s nothing wrong wanting peace and sanity, in and of themselves, but what I’m saying is that those things shouldn’t be the primary motivating force behind why we read the bible or why we pray. Yes, we gain peace in praying. And yes, renewing our minds in the Word keeps our heads on straight in this crazy world. But a lot of people from many different religions perform these same activities with the same intentions.
We, as Christians, should seek out God….. because we know He is the true, living God.
I think I have allowed the dullness of my heart to short-change me. God is indescribably massive, incomprehensibly generous, and intentionally desirous of me… there is so much of Him for me to behold and He’s willing to give it to me… but I’ve been cruising through most of my days on auto-pilot, satisfied with what I’ve got.
- Satisfied with the amount of His presence that I’ve got.
- Satisfied with the amount of knowledge I’ve got.
- Satisfied with the amount of wisdom I’ve got.
- Satisfied with the amount of love that I’ve got.
……….Satisfied with the amount of God that I’ve got.
If you asked me if I was satisfied in any of these areas, I would sincerely and with conviction tell you, “In no way!” But deep down I know differently. The Lord has blessed me with an enormous amount of free time, and how do I use it? Watching netflix, facebook stalking and refreshing my twitter feed every 3 minutes, just to name a few. Oh, but I of course make sure I get my [minimal amount of] reading and prayer in first! I’m such a good Christian, huh? Wrong. I may be good at behavior modification and I probably surpass most in religious devout-ness, but following Jesus isn’t so much about what you do, but where your heart is at in the things you do.
I can hear it now… “Oh, Matt… the poor thing is always self-loathing and hating himself”… I assure you, I’m not. I am eternally loved by God. He values me, cherishes me and even wants me. In these things I may waiver in my assurance of at times, like we all do, but nonetheless I do know them to be fact. So rather than hating myself for my short comings, I rejoice when the Lord shows them to me! I am grateful beyond words that He even allows me to see this laxity in my walk with Him. In His love for me He’s showing me how low I’m settling. I have so much time on my hands, and spend a minority of it doing anything pertaining to the Lord. It’s like I think, “Well, I’m saved. I’m going to Heaven. And now I guess I’ll just wait.”…but God is not running out of Himself to give away. He’s not in limited supply. There’s so much more of Him to seize, right now! So much more of His presence to walk in, right now!
This last half-year of life is starting to make much more sense now as I sit here and write this out. I’ve not been fighting sin like I should, but rather succumbing to it’s seduction on an all too regular basis. My heart has been dry, and my soul been quenched with thirst… but I’ve been too caught up in my self-made religion (where I do just enough “seeking”to not feel guilty) to even realize it. Because I haven’t been chasing after God with my whole heart, my flesh does what comes natural and chases after created things to satisfy my thirst. But as we all know, nothing satisfies like God does. Nothing satisfies like the real, tangible, soul-permeating Spirit of God does.
“Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”- Psalm 51:12
I say all this to point out one thing. Although my pursuit of God has been nearly non-existent, and my sinful behavior on the rise….. God has still pursued me. I wouldn’t have even realized any of this if God was not pursuing me (might I add, without me giving Him a reason to). Because of Jesus’ words, “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you…”, along with the entire counsel of Scripture, we know that before we ever even had the desire to come to God, it was He that pursued us. He chased after, sought out and grabbed hold of us to give us the true life that we didn’t even know existed. But what I just realized, in a more real way, anyway, is that He continues to pursue us…. diligently, constantly, passionately. Our indifference, defiance and laziness toward Him doesn’t deter Him…. but rather is the backdrop by which He demonstrates even more gloriously His grace and goodness toward us. We know that “God showed His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”….. but do we realize that God presently loves us and continues to chase after us? How much clearer is this portrayed than in Jesus’ own words about the one sheep straying away from the other 99? The shepherd goes after the one sheep… and I would venture to say, He would go after that one sheep even if it strayed away 1,000 more times. He will go after that sheep until the sheep learns how beneficial it is to stay on the heels of his Shepherd…. until that sheep sees the safety, love and security he has in the presence of the Shepherd.
To the believing, born-again, regenerate Christian: God is after you, in a good way, at all times. Nothing you can do or neglect to do will change that. His grace doesn’t waiver or extinguish itself.
Earlier today, Tullian Tchividijian tweeted about a conversation he had with a random stranger. It went something like this:
Random Guy: “But grace isn’t how the world works.”
Tullian: “That’s because grace isn’t from this world.”
Wow, Matt. This post really spoke to me. We’re both dealing with SSA and I see a lot of other parallels between us in your post. A few weeks ago (the most recent time I got caught in sexual sin), I started going full-tilt toward God, putting spiritual things in my mind like never before. And the sin was lessened considerably. I started many activities that have been helpful. But what I have not really done is “sought God”. I’m still a little unclear what that means on a practical level. But I don’t want to do whatever it is just to check it off on a to-do list; I want to know Him like never before, and know Him more each day than I did the day before. I want Him to finally be real in my life. The sin has come back to an extent. I want it eradicated from my life. Thank you, Matt. You are doing such a service in writing this blog. Please stay in the center of His will, and don’t let the opposition get to you. You’re speaking the truth, and it will always be offensive to some. I thank God for you!
I would love to hear your thoughts on how to seek God. Please feel free to contact me: jlstubblefield@liberty.edu
Hey Jerry! Thanks for your comment. It’s through means, like meditation on God’s revelation of HImself through His Word, and prayer, that we seek God. But even deeper than that our heart has to be centered in on finding Him through those avenues. I was just saying in this post how my heart has not been centered in on finding Him, but rather in doing “just enough” to feel good about myself. It sounds like your heart is right though.
And as far as that pesky sin goes, just remember that you’ve got to seek God each day for the day itself. His mercy is new every morning and His grace sufficient each day. Don’t depend on the grace and mercy you found yesterday to sustain you today. Seek Him out today and grab hold of the grace and mercy found in Him. C.S. Lewis has a good quote on that… he said it much more eloquently than I did lol.
@Matt
“Watching netflix, facebook stalking and refreshing my twitter feed every 3 minutes”….Dagnabit! These are the 3 main ingredients of my life!
*curse u Moore!*
@Matt (@Jerry)
All joking aside, I related to your post Matt.
Some old man once advised me on spiritual warfare “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world” [Epistle of ‘whoever’ ; Verse # ‘whatever’- spare me the details- lol]. And the old man went on to say, yes, we DO have a spiritual battle yet we also have sooo much more beauty both in this life and in the next life to direct our attention to other than temptation; and that one way to fight defensively is to fight offensively.
I asked him what “fighting offensively” means and he said the following:
Consider you are in a dark room that has no light. It is pitch black. No matter how hard you try to “punch” the darkness with your fists or wave your hands forcefully; the darkness will still remain. But when you open the door to exit outside, even if you simply crack the door open ever so slightly; a small beam of light pours into the dark room and diffuses the darkness effortlessly. So it is with temptation: Do not “fight” (“punch”) temptation as much as direct your eyes toward God and all that is beautiful. And this “beauty” (i.e. beam of light) will diffuse the darkness without you having to exert yourself. (Easier said than done, but I think you get the old man’s point)
He used a gardening parable so to speak to further explain:
Temptations are like weeds near a flower garden. You can get down on your knees and toil and sweat to remove the weeds with bloody hands or you can simply divert your water supply away from the weeds and DIRECT your water to the flowers instead. The flowers will begin to thrive while the weeds (i.e. temptation) will die out slowly all by themselves effortlessly.
How am I to understand this and apply this? I guess one way is to stay PHYSICALLY busy: run, jump, hike, spike, bike, swim, play (just like the NIKE commercial says- lol). I probably could stay out of more trouble if I spent more time outdoors than indoors roaming facebook, twitter, etc. (whoever thinks Facebook is a safe kid-friendly venue free of porn-like images is kidding themselves) And another way is to not get bogged down when we DO fall; kinda like how the commenter Jerry (above) mentioned how he went into ‘double-time repentance overload’ after he recently “got caught in sexual sin” (btw, Jerry, there is a thing called a ‘door lock’. It keeps people from walking in on you when you are in a moment of weakness- just sayin’ )
Yet another way to “diffuse the darkness” (i.e. temptation) is to direct one’s attention to loftier things: for example, volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters (God knows those kids need a mentor!), go feed the homeless at a soup kitchen, volunteer at a retirement center. Doing such activities is NOT for the sake of doing good deeds for others as much as it is to DIVERT us from doing BAD deeds to our own soul!
So when I look at my poor life; seeing how I stumble and fall and get battered and fail continuously in this spiritual challenge we call life I get discouraged. There is a great song on pop radio these days called “FIGHTER” by Gym Class Heroes (on youtube). The lyrics refer to a real life 2012 Olympic athlete who strives to get up after continual disappointment: The song’s lyrics can be interpreted and applied to “Spiritual Olympians” too. Don’t give up…[song]
“Until the referee rings the bell!”
“Till both of your eyes start to swell!”
“Until the crowd goes home, what are we gonna do yall!”
Keep fighten!
Superb…we overcome by the blood and word of our testimony. Thanks for making it real, not covered up or superficial….
How do you reject that which gives you joy? Sorry, but Channing Tatum and Chace Crawford are guys I find enticing … as a male.
To say I should reject this sense of satisfaction is like suggesting I should hate Bach and Rachmaninoff (and by the way, these “ex-gay” camps force gay men to stop listening to Bach!!).
You can live life as a gay man with integrity. Don’t whore around. Don’t be a drug fiend or a shallow and callous twit.
It can be done!
You’re talking about short-lived and temporary pleasure, not true and lasting joy. True and lasting joy can only be found through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I’m willing to give up and deny the temporary pleasures of this world because I know what’s waiting on the other side in eternity. I’ve tried to fill the emptiness with all the crap in this world and it doesn’t last and there’s only a thirst for more. Life is way too short and God has way too much to offer – salvation, lasting joy here on earth and spending eternity with him – ONE BIG ETERNAL PARTY! This life is over in the blink of an eye, eternity is, well, eternal and I for one am not willing to live for the termporal pleasures this world has to offer.
Amen, Brad
Matt! Thank you so much for the insightful post. I am struggling with the same thing, kind of on spiritual auto-pilot. I am going to ask God for a softer heart and the desire to want to be with Him.
If I were paranoid I’d think you had a camera installed in my computer. Sadly, though, I don’t think you could afford to have so many installed in so many of our computers, because I think we all get to that place. It’s called “getting too comfortable” with our relationship with God. Kind of like the “old married syndrom”. Instead of consistently reigniting that fire of passion we initially had when we turned our lives over to Him, we become comfortable with simply grunting “good morning”, receiving our “daily bread”, and then heading out the door to do life. Father, daily reignite that passion in us to desire relationship with You, not just familiarity. To seek You, not just glance Your way. To hunger for You, not just nibble at Your table.
Wait! Ok, so you hijacked my brain! So true, so real! Thanks again Matt!
bravo
Great post Matt!! So proud of you , love you my friend.
Reblogged this on The Fingerprint Project and commented:
Worth of being read…
Bro, that was an awesome post. Praise God for how He is using you.