Jeremiah 29:13 – You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart
THEME OF THE DAY: THE GREATEST EXPERIENCE EVER KNOWN. There are times when we read our Bibles, it seems like the words “just explode” off the page. The Lord through His Word becomes so real that all the world of sense fades. We are in communion with Him and never want it to end. We meditate or soak in His Word. We “see” Him and receive instruction. It is instruction easy to hear, peaceful, full of wisdom and liberating. Just like James tells us the instruction from heaven is to be (James 3:17). It is those times we truly know the Lord. It is in those sacred seasons we “behold the Lord” and grow into His likeness (2 Corinthians 3:18). We may even grab our Bible, hold it close to our chests and cry out like David, “Oh, how I love Your law” (Pslam 119:97). Granted we won’t have these “Mountain of Transfiguration” experiences every time we open the Bible, but they should be encounters that are regular. God gave us His Word to know Him; to love Him; to enjoy Him; and to walk with Him in this life. He did everything He could to open the way to all those experiences by the life, death, and resurrection of His Son, the Lord Jesus, and the giving of His Word. Yes, it is the greatest experience ever known – to encounter the living God through His Word. Yet, we painfully know times of dry Bible reading and forgetting what we just read minutes after closing God’s book. There are two reasons for this. First, we still must deal with the power of remaining sin, not conquering us, but certainly distracting us from meeting the Lord in His Book. Another reason is found in not meeting the condition in today’s scripture – a whole-hearted seeking of the Lord.
The Lord gave us a great promise offering us the greatest experience a human will ever have; a living fellowship with Him – ‘You will find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart.’ Nothing so thrills the soul, satisfies our hearts, and motivates us to holiness more than knowing the Lord Jesus in a real, felt, and living relationship. Yet, there are times we are not thrilled in our souls, satisfied in our hearts and motivated to practice flesh-denying holiness in our walks with the Lord. And one of the key reasons might be our failure to meet the requirement of Jesus’ conditional promise. He said, ‘You will find me’ when ‘You must seek me with all your heart.’ To seek Him with all our hearts means two things.
First, no one or anything must be allowed to replace Him as the highest affection in our hearts. That doesn’t mean less love to others. It means highest love to Christ. If there are affections in our lives higher than Christ, we may pray all day long, “Lord, I want to know You” and never get close to Him. Our Lord will not allow “two thrones” to be in our hearts. One Lord is not only our confession, but also our lives. He simply will not share His throne room with anyone or anything. Please, let’s not deceive ourselves in thinking we can have “multiple Lords” in our lives.
Next to seek the Lord with our whole heart means with the best of our time and effort. The Lord will not be known and enjoyed by the half-hearted and minimal effort Christian. Yes, knowing the Lord is our greatest privilege and demands our greatest effort. He is worthy of nothing less from us. Let’s strive to ensure we don’t give the time we are most alert and with the greatest amount of energy to things of the world, and not the Word. Knowing Christ is the height of joy and purpose. He is so glorious and satisfying to the soul that He will not allow the undisciplined and misplaced prioritized Christian to go into deep levels of intimacy with Him. And that not because He is reluctant to reveal Himself. It is to let us know the inestimable value of knowing this “pearl of great price.” May He find us meeting the condition of the promise He is eager to fulfill – knowing Him.
PRAYER: “Lord, help me to encounter You in Your Word and not just words on the pages of Your Book.”
QUOTE: “Only the diligent seeker will know the Lord.”