Today is day two of unpacking the mind-boggling truths standing behind my book.
Yesterday I left myself empty and disillusioned, asking God to reboot my spiritual life. It took awhile, but eventually he replaced all five of those beliefs with new ones. Let’s take the first one: If you truly want to find God, you have to seek him with all your heart.
I cracked open my Bible and started looking. I literally prayed something like, “Lord, apparently I know nothing. Please re-teach me.” And this is what I found: There was a name for my failing way of life. It’s called “the old way of the written code” (Romans 7:6). And that there was “a new way of the Spirit” to discover (Romans 7:6 too).
There are about sixty references to seeking God in the Old Testament. That’s a major theme, people. Eight of those sixty actually say we’re supposed to seek God’s face. Sound familiar? You’ve probably been told you need to do that. Seek the Lord. Seek his face! With all your heart!
Uh huh. But there are only three references to seeking God in the New Testament. Yup. You heard me: Three. Hebrews 11:6, “God rewards those who earnestly seek him”, which is about humanity, not believers; Romans 10:20, where God says, “I was found by those who did not seek me” (the opposite message); and Romans 3:11, which says that “no one seeks God.” That’s it. And the only bit about seeking God’s face is in II Cor. 4:6, where Paul says, “For God, who said, “let there be light,” made his light shine in our hearts to GIVE us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” Jesus’ face has been given to us. Something’s significant has shifted between the Old and the New, methinks.
That something is called the cross, folks. Jesus bridged the gap, brought us near, came to live inside us (Galatians 2:20). The message of the New Testament is that God is seeking US! Luke 10:19: “(Jesus) came to seek and save the lost.” See also John 4:23.
So I stopped seeking God. Took his presence as a granted. Woke up to his indwelling, abiding ‘here-ness.’ And started enjoying him instead.
TO BE CONTINUED…