Seek God • First

You know how life sort of overtakes you with busy-ness? Like you are always playing "catch up" and reacting to everything as it happens, rather than having the chance to plan it out and dive in first to make things happen? It's modern civilization that brings us all sorts of modern technology and easier living, yet it comes with the hefty price of schedules and appointments, bills and obligations that force us to constantly run as hard as we can to compete or keep up in order not to lose anything.

God has been teaching me a lot lately - about Himself and His kingdom. A couple weeks back, I took a spiritual retreat that had a strange impact on me. God spoke to my spirit and left my mind completely out of it. The results have been confusing, yet over the past few weeks, the Holy Spirit has revealed more and more to me, and I'm just now really beginning to understand. Normally, in my regular prayers, I'd pray for regular things, like provision, job promotion and blessing for my husband, health for those I knew needed it, salvation for those I knew needed that, blessing and peace for those who were unsettled or unhappy with something... stuff - but I never felt I was getting the results like how God's Word describes:

"This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him." I John 5:14-15

"And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." Matthew 21:22

"And Jesus answered saying to them, 'Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, "Be taken up and cast into the sea," and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.'" Mark 11:22-25

"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it." John 14:12-14

I knew God was hearing me, and I'd examine myself to make sure that I was praying according to His will, with faith, and with a pure and clean heart. Yet, I wasn't experiencing the promises. One elementary truth in God's kingdom is that every promise is conditional: "IF... THEN". So I began asking God what it was in me that was hindering His answers and power. Slowly, I started to see that even though I wasn't sinning and was free from sin in Christ, and even though I was praying according to His will - I became painfully aware that I wasn't completely obeying either. I was praying as I was living, under the principle of playing "catch up". If I got a headache, then I would pray for my health. If we were doing poorly in our finances, then I would pray for financial blessing... I was responding to the world (grant it - responding properly), but not obeying the Word (as in living above the circumstances so that I don't have to respond, rather, it responds to me).

Being a student of God's Word, and a disciple of Christ Jesus the Lord, Who is King over all heaven and earth - I knew that God's Laws come with blessings and curses, yet I lived as if they didn't exist because of my freedom in Christ and the gift of God's grace in the new covenant in Jesus. But all of God's Word is forever, and our freedom in Christ isn't a freedom to do things our way or an exempt pass from doing things we don't want to do, but rather it is a freedom to do all that God commands us to do in His Word. I had been praying backwards... I was praying for "all these things" instead of for Jesus' character and quality to be implanted, grown, developed and displayed in me, and instead of doing the Word and giving God all the glory, and forgetting all about what I needed.

So, I remembered things God had brought into my understanding that I still hadn't conformed to - like observing His Holy Days. I repented and dedicated myself to start observing them, and blessing poured out on me immediately. As soon as I shifted my mindset, I started seeing incredible results in my life! Sometimes it's not about keeping sin out of our lives, sometimes, it's about putting more of God and His instructions into our lives. After all, it is all about Him...

We are to live on this earth worshipping God and seeking Him and His ways, living to please and honor Him only. His Word is not meaningless, it is reality.

Often we ignore or misunderstand God's instructions because they are spiritual and not natural. We humans tend to gravitate towards what we can see or reason with our physical eyes and with our human intellect, but using those gifts will only push us away from God unless we submit them to the Holy Spirit of God to enlighten us to the truth. Whatever God teaches us in His Word, we must first, understand it the way God meant it by searching out the truth of it, and then by implimenting that truth into our lives and conforming to it, whether we naturally agree with it or not, whether we feel like it or not. We don't really have our own lives, we are either a child of God or a child of Satan - so while Satan has us running around with busy-ness, we are distracted from giving all we are and have to God and we miss out on the extent of His amazing promises. We must learn that to live, freely, abundantly, fulfilled and joyously, is to die to self, to deny our tendancy to believe the illusion of self-rulership and self-worship - that is, living to do want we want to do in this world for our own pleasure or honor.

At best, we are to love ourselves and all others equally and significantly less than we love God...

"Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not look out for your own personal interests, but for the interests of others." Philippians 2:3-4

"... Love your fellow human being as yourself.'..." Mark 12:31

Spending time, energy, resources, and passion on the things that matter to God is a much lighter load to carry than to run in the rat-race of the world trying to keep what you have or trying to obtain more. And we are surprisingly protected and given more by God anyway for it. Our primary concern should be our relationship with God and our conformity of Jesus' character and lifestyle, so that we may represent Him as pure lights accurately in this dark world and prove God's glory and name the hightest above all! If we cannot truly represent His will and personality our lives in and out by our unwavering faith and obedience, then He will not grant us His power to misrepresent Him in the world. If we know God's Word, and believe it, we must live it out and let it manifest through us!