Tag: communication with God

Seeking God Successfully (Part One)

Psalm 27:8

You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, Lord, do I seek” (ESV).

In this verse we see God’s command and David’s obedience. God provides David with a warrant to seek God and David responds by accepting the offer. The first three words are not in the original text, but are added by the translators to make clear that God was inviting David to seek his face. The lack of the words should not surprise us. Close personal relationships are emotional, even when they flow deep beneath the surface, and so they can be abrupt. The sudden call from God to seek his face is thus very natural.

Let’s focus on God’s call to us.

In these words God is revealing to us that he wants to disclose himself to humans. In God’s word, we see written the certainty of his desire. David as God’s prophet tells us of this. God is reaching out from the glorious splendor of his majesty to draw near to his weak creatures. Here is a source of happiness, that God would have a close (face-to-face) relationship with people that he created. From this we ought to gain a better understanding of what true religion is. It is much more than the performance of ritual—any ritual and especially empty ritual. True Christianity is intensely personal. God calls to people he made to dare and approach the Holy One as one would approach a friend or lover. Yes, we must approach him as he directs in his word, but that is not the present point. Instead, it is God graciously calling, and a human simply trusting that call to dare to communicate with God.

Why would God want to call us to him? Mere creatures, particularly sinful creatures, can never add anything to all-sufficient Glory. No, it is because in his holiness (set-apartness) he is loving and good, and he wants to share his glory and goodness and love with us. So we hear these words, “Seek my face.” Notice also that God takes the initiative in relating to us. By nature we do not seek God (Romans 3:11). In fact, we wander from him and suppress his revelation. We fail to invest time to draw near to him. We get caught up in lesser things to our own loss. But God still graciously calls us to draw near to him (cf. James 4:8).

What we must understand is that God wants us to know him and to approach him personally. Some people who are great in the eyes of the world hold themselves back from common people. But God, the greatest of all, want us to be with him—forever. This is one of the goals of the plan of God (Revelation 21:3). Everything that God wants us to do by means of evangelism and worship and discipleship and service and prayer and fellowship tends toward this greater purpose; namely, to have a people close to his face. In the same way, every sin opposes that goal and seeks to ruin it.

Therefore, we must realize that if at any time we are not enjoying the sweetness of being near to God, the problem lies with us, and not with the God who loves us and calls us to participate in a close personal relationship with him. This can be hard for us to accept, since we tend to act like Adam in the Garden, when he blamed God for giving Eve to him. In our sin we want to blame God and to excuse ourselves. But our minds must be controlled by the Scriptures.

God has chosen to communicate his desire for a personal relationship with people. This is not some hidden fact, disclosed only to some discerning theologians. It is plainly stated in this text and many texts. Think of all the calls that come from God or Christ in the Bible. Consider God’s desire to fellowship with his people through Christ (1 Corinthians 1:9). Before the creation Father, Son and Holy Spirit were fully satisfied in their united glory as God. But because God is good, he willed to make his goodness known (Romans 9:23-24), not because he had to but because he wanted to. As light naturally enlightens a room, so the goodness of God naturally reaches out to those who need his goodness. What of those who do not want God’s goodness? Their wickedness does not discredit God’s goodness (Romans 3:1-8), and they fulfill another purpose (Romans 9:22).

Since we are God’s people and have experienced his goodness in a close way, we should sense our responsibility to let others know of his goodness (Psalm 34:8). God has called us to a place and time to be a co-communicator of his desire for personal fellowship. As we experience God’s goodness, we become better communicators of God’s desire to share his goodness with people that he has made. We thus have a happy message. In addition we show forth God’s desire when we freely want to tell others of God’s goodness and when we seek to spread this knowledge far. When a fire is great it burns far; when love is great it extends and communicates itself far and wide.

Grace and peace, David

Jehoshaphat’s Prayer Request

img_16692 Chronicles 20:10-12

The Lord communicates with his people through the Holy Spirit using his word. He opens up the word to us, makes us feel the power of God’s word, and applies it to our minds and hearts, so that our thoughts, ideas, attitudes, and actions are transformed by it. God’s people communicate with him through prayer, praise, and worship. We express our delight in him and share our lives with him. Since we are dependent created beings, part of sharing our lives with God involves making requests of him. We must be clear about this, because some contemporary Christians assert that God gives them messages during prayer. If this wrong idea was true, it would have been recorded on numerous occasions in the Scriptures. Please don’t form your doctrines from wrong ideas that you suppose make you feel good and spice up prayer. Communicating with the living God is all the “spice” that anyone needs!

Many times in the Bible, the Lord God asks and encourages us to ask him. We should never feel reluctant to bring our requests to the throne of grace. To draw back because we sense our sinfulness exchanges grace for pride in our performance. Clearly, Jehoshaphat was not a perfect man, but that did not stop him from presenting his needs and the great need of his people to the Lord. So then, let us listen to Jehoshaphat present an important request.

Jehoshaphat spoke about their problem (20:10-11). Yes, God fully knows our needs. We do not pray to provide information to the One who knows everything. We talk with God, because he has graciously brought us into a covenantal relationship with him, and he wants us to share our lives with him. Consider a couple awaiting the birth of their first child… or grandchild. One might ask the other, “How do you feel about this?” The purpose of the question is not find out some information that he or she is ignorant about. Instead, it is to draw out the experience of the other’s excitement about the coming blessed event. It is to share the wonder of new life with each other. God wants us to make known our thoughts and ideas about our problems. It is what prayer does. Read John 17, the great prayer of Jesus, in which he talked with the Father about his concerns as the cross drew near. Jesus knew that joy would come through the cross (Hebrews 12:2), and so he talked about the glory ahead with his Father.

Notice that what Jehoshaphat said is based on his prior worship of the Lord. He expected God to help, because he had given them the land (cf. 20:7, 11). Helping them would be consistent with his gracious gift. God can judge his enemies, because he is all-powerful and no one can successfully oppose him (20:6, 12). They, however, are weak and in desperate need.

Jehoshaphat asked God to judge the enemy and to rescue them (20:12). Here is a request that must be read with an understanding of salvation history. At that time, God’s people were a physical nation that God had promised to protect, if they obeyed him. As we have said before, God does not promise his new covenant people physical protection, but his presence with his suffering people, as they serve God and others self-sacrificially. See how Jehoshaphat threw himself humbly and completely on God’s mercy (20:12b). And in the clash of fear and faith, while his fear assaulted him, his faith looked up to the Lord for rescue!

Have you ever asked God to rescue you? Do you know why you need to be rescued? Let’s think about this. Because Christ has died for sinners and has risen that whoever believes in him may be right with God, we encourage you to ask the Lord Jesus to rescue you today. This is an eternal rescue that meets your greatest need, which is to right with God. If you trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, God will declare you right with him. Read Romans 3:21-4:5.

Grace and peace, David