…but the people who know their God..

Author: Billy Conrad

  • Take Authority Over Satan

    Get behind Me, Satan! — Luke 4:8

    Scripture reading: Luke 4:1–13

    Jesus was wounded so that He might be able to identify with your weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15). He took your flesh and laid it upon the cross so that “He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:14-15).

    You will find that almost all the ailments that you experience come as a result of Satan, and they must be dealt with as satanic; they must be cast out. Do not listen to what Satan says to you, for the Devil is a liar from the beginning (John 8:44). If people would only listen to the truth of God, they would realize that every evil spirit is subject to them. They would find out that they are always in the place of triumph, and they would “reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17).

    Never live in a place other than where God has called you, and He has called you from on high to live with Him. God has designed that everything will be subject to man. Through Christ, He has given you authority over all the power of the Enemy. He has worked out your eternal redemption.

    I was finishing a meeting one day in Switzerland. When the
    meeting ended and we had ministered to all the sick, we went out to see some people. Two boys came to us and said that there was a blind man present at the meeting that afternoon. He had heard all the words of the preacher and said he was surprised that he had not been prayed for. They went on to say that this blind man had heard so much that he would not leave until he could see. I said, ―This is positively unique. God will do something today for that
    man.

    We got to the place. The blind man said he had never seen. He was born blind, but because of the Word preached in the afternoon, he was not going home until he could see. If ever I have joy, it is when I have a lot of people who will not be satisfied until they get all that they have come for. With great joy, I anointed him and laid hands on his eyes. Immediately, God restored his vision. It was very strange how the man reacted. There were some electric lights. First he counted them; then he counted us. Oh, the ecstatic pleasure that this man experienced every moment because of his sight! It made us all feel like weeping and dancing and shouting. Then he pulled out his watch and said that for years he had been feeling the raised figures on the watch in order to tell the time. But now, he could look at it and tell us the time. Then, looking as if he had just awakened from some deep sleep, or some long, strange dream, he realized that he had never seen the faces of his father and mother. He went to the door and rushed out. That night, he was the first person to arrive for the meeting. All the people knew him as the blind man, and I had to give him a long time to talk about his new sight.

    I wonder how much you want to take with you today. You
    could not carry it if it were substance, but there is something about the grace, the power, and the blessings of God that can be carried, no matter how big they are. Oh, what a Savior! What a place we are in, by grace, that He may come in to commune with us. He is willing to say to every heart, “Peace, be still” (Mark 4:39), and to every weak body, “Be strong” (Deuteronomy 31:6). Are you going halfway, or are you going all the way to the end?

    Thought for today: Do not be deceived by Satan, but believe God.

  • Ask Largely of God

    June 12

    He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said,
    out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.
    —John 7:38

    Scripture reading: John 7:37–8:12

    I know that dry ground can be flooded (Isaiah 44:3). May God prevent me from ever wanting anything less than a flood. Through the blood of Christ‘s atonement, we may have riches and riches. We need the warming atmosphere of the Spirit‘s power to bring us closer and closer until nothing but God can satisfy. Then we may have some idea of what God has left after we have taken all that we can. It is like a sparrow taking a drink of the ocean and then looking around and saying, ―What a vast ocean! I could have taken a lot more if only I had room.

    Sometimes you have things you can use, and you don‘t know it. You could be dying of thirst right in a river of plenty. There was once a boat in the mouth of the Amazon River. The people on board thought they were still in the ocean. They were dying of thirst, some of them nearly mad. They saw a ship and asked if they would give them some water. Someone on the ship replied, ―Dip your bucket right over; you are in the mouth of the river. There are a number of people today in the middle of the great river of life, but
    they are dying of thirst because they do not dip down and take from the river. Dear friend, you may have the Word, but you need an awakened spirit. The Word is not alive until it is moved upon by the Spirit of God, and in the right sense, it becomes Spirit and Life when it is touched by His hand alone.

    Beloved, “there is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High” (Psalms 46:4). There is a stream of life that makes everything move. There is a touch of divine life and likeness through the Word of God that comes from nowhere else. We think of death as the absence of life, but there is a death-likeness in Christ, who is full of life.

    There is no such thing as an end to God‘s beginnings. We must be in Christ; we must know Him. Life in Christ is not a touch; it is not a breath; it is the almighty God; it is a Person; it is the Holy One dwelling in the temple “not made with hands” (Hebrews 9:11). Oh, beloved, He touches, and it is done. He is the same God over all, “rich to all who call upon Him” (Romans 10:12). Pentecost is the last thing that God has to touch the earth with. If you do not receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, you are living in a weak and impoverished condition, which is no good to you or anybody else. May God move us on to a place where there is no measure to this fullness that He wants to give us. God exalted Jesus and gave Him a name above every name. You notice that everything has been put under Him.

    The tide is rolling in. Let us see to it today that we get right
    into the tide, for it will hold us. God‘s heart of love is the center of all things. Get your eyes off yourself; lift them up high, and see the Lord, for in Him, there “is everlasting strength” (Isaiah 26:4).

    If you went to see a doctor, the more you told him about yourself, the more he would know. But when you come to Doctor Jesus, He knows all from the beginning, and He never prescribes the wrong medicine. Jesus sends His healing power and brings His restoring grace, so there is nothing to fear. The only thing that is wrong is your wrong conception of His redemption.

    Thought for today: I will not settle for small things when I have such a big God.

  • Filled With God

    June 11

    You may be filled with all the fullness of God. — Ephesians 3:19

    Scripture reading: Ephesians 3

    Some people come with very small expectations concerning God‘s fullness, and a lot of people are satisfied with a thimbleful. You can just imagine God saying, ― Oh, if they only knew how much they could take away! Other people come with a larger container, and they go away satisfied. God is longing for us to have such a desire for more, a desire that only He can satisfy.

    You women would have a good idea of what I mean from the illustration of a screaming child being passed from one person to another. The child is never satisfied until he gets to the arms of his mother. You will find that no peace, no help, no source of strength, no power, no life, nothing can satisfy the cry of the child of God but the Word of God. God has a special way of satisfying the cries of His children. He is waiting to open the windows of heaven until He has moved in the depths of our hearts so that everything unlike Himself has been destroyed.

    What a wonderful, divine position God intends us all to have, to be filled with the Holy Spirit. It is something so remarkable, so divine; it is, as it were, a great open door into all the treasury of the Most High. As the Spirit comes like “rain upon the mown grass” (Psalms 72:6 KJV), He turns the barrenness into greenness, freshness, and life. Your dryness becomes springs, your barrenness becomes floods, your whole life is vitalized by heaven, and you begin to live as a new creation.

    No one needs to go away empty. God wants you to be filled. My brother, my sister, God wants you today to be like a watered garden, filled with the fragrance of His own heavenly joy, until you know at last that you have touched the immense fullness of God. The Son of God came for no other purpose than to lift, to mold, and to remold, until “we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16).

    Thought for today: The Spirit of the living God sweeps through all weaknesses.

  • Free From Sin

    June 10

    Free from Sin

    There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. — Romans 8:1–2

    Scripture reading: Romans 8:1–17

    The Spirit of the Lord wants to bring you into revelation. He
    wants you without condemnation. What will that mean? It
    will mean a great deal in every way, because God wants all
    His people to be clear witnesses so that the world will know we belong to Him. More than that, He wants us to be “the salt of the earth” (Matt. 5:13); to be “the light of the world” (v. 14); to be like cities built on a hill so that they cannot be hidden (v. 14). He wants us to be so “in God” (1 John 4:15) that the world will see God in us. Then they can look to Him for redemption. That is the law of the Spirit. What will it do? “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” will make you ―free from the law of sin and death.” Sin will have no dominion over you (Rom. 6:14). You will have no desire to sin, and it will be as true of you as it was of Jesus when He said, “The ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me” (John 14:30). Satan cannot influence; he has no power. His power is destroyed: “The body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness” (Rom. 8:10).

    To be filled with God means that you are free. You are filled
    with joy, peace, blessing, and strength of character. You are transformed by God‘s mighty power.

    Notice there are two laws. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” makes you “free from the law of sin and death.” “The law of sin and death” is in you as it was before, but it is dead. You still have your same flesh, but its power over you is gone. You are the same person, but you have been awakened into spiritual life. You are a “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17), created in God afresh after the image of Christ. Now, beloved, some people who conform to this truth do not understand their inheritance, and they go down. Instead of becoming weak, you have to rise triumphantly over “the law of sin and death.” In Romans, we read, “I thank God; through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin” (Rom. 7:25).

    God wants to show you that there is a place where we can live in the Spirit and not be subject to the flesh. We can live in the Spirit until sin has no dominion over us. We reign in life and see the covering of God over us in the Spirit. Sin reigned unto death, but Christ reigned over sin and death, and so we reign with Him in life. Through the agony He suffered, He purchased our blessed redemption.

    Thought for today: In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus restored to you everything that was lost in the Garden of Eden.

  • A Fresh Vision for Each Day

    June 9

    A Fresh Vision for Each Day

    His compassions fail not. They are new every morning.
    —Lamentations 3:22–23

    Scripture reading: Psalm 62

    I am out to win souls. It is my business to seek the lost. It is
    my business to make everybody hungry, dissatisfied, mad,
    or glad. I want to see every person filled with the Holy Spirit. I must have a message from heaven that will not leave people as I found them. Something must happen if we are filled with the Holy Spirit. Something must happen at every place. Men must know that a man filled with the Holy Spirit is no longer a man. A man can be swept by the power of God in his first stage of revelation of Christ, and from that moment on, he has to be an extraordinary man. In order to be filled with the Holy Spirit, he has to become a free body for God to dwell in.

    I appeal to you who have been filled with the Holy Spirit:
    whatever the cost, let God have His way. I appeal to you who have to move on, who cannot rest until God does something for you. God has been revealing to me that anyone who does not sin yet remains in the same place spiritually for a week is a backslider. You say, ―How is it possible?‖ Because God‘s revelation is available to anyone who will wholeheartedly be committed to following God.

    Staying the same for two days would almost indicate that you had lost the vision. The child of God must have a fresh vision every day. The child of God must be more active by the Holy Spirit every day. The child of God must come into line with the power of heaven, where he knows that God has put His hand upon him.

    Jesus went about doing good, for God was with Him. God
    anointed Him. Beloved, is that not the ministry to which God would have us become heirs? Why? Because the Holy Spirit has to bring us a revelation of Jesus, and the purpose of being filled with the Holy Spirit is to give us a revelation of Jesus. He will make the Word of God just the same life as was given by the Son, as new, as fresh, as effective as if the Lord Himself were speaking.

    I wonder how many of you are a part of the bride of Christ?
    The bride loves to hear the Bridegroom‘s voice (John 3:29). Here it is, the blessed Word of God, the whole Word, not just part of it. No, we believe in the whole thing. Day by day, we find out that the Word itself gives life. The Spirit of the Lord breathes through us. He makes the Word come alive in our hearts and minds. So I have within my hands, within my heart, within my mind, this blessed reservoir of promises that is able to do so many marvelous things.

    God has indeed been manifesting Himself. I must tell you one of those cases. In Oakland, California, I held meetings at a theater. Only to glorify God, I tell you that Oakland was in a very serious state. There was very little Pentecostal work there, and so a large theater was rented. God worked especially in filling the place until we had to have overflow meetings. In these meetings, we had a rising flood of people getting saved by standing up voluntarily, all over that place, getting saved the moment they stood. Then we had a large number of people who needed help in their bodies, rising up in faith and being healed.

    One of them was an old man who was ninety-five years of age. He had been suffering for three years until he gradually got to the place that for three weeks he was consuming only liquids. He was in a terrible state, but this man was different from the others. I got him to stand while I prayed for him, and he came back and told us with such a radiant face that new life had come into his body. He said, ―I am ninety-five years old. When I came into the meeting, I was full of pain with cancer in the stomach. I have been healed so that I have been eating perfectly, and I have no pain. Similarly, many people were healed.

    I hope you are expecting big things.

    Thought for today: No man can have the Trinity abiding in him and be the same as he was before.

  • The Need for Humility

    June 8

    Serving the Lord with all humility. — Acts 20:19

    Scripture reading: James 4

    None of us will be able to be ministers of the new covenant
    of promise in the power of the Holy Spirit without humility. It is clear to me that in the measure the death of the Lord is in me, the life of the Lord will abound in me. To me, the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not a goal; it is an infilling that allows us to reach the highest level, the holiest position that it is possible for human nature to reach. The baptism of the Holy Spirit comes to reveal Him who is filled fully with God.

    To be baptized with the Holy Spirit is to be baptized into death, into life, into power, into fellowship with the Trinity, where we cease to be and God takes us forever. Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). I believe that God wants to put His hand upon us so that we may reach ideal definitions of humility, of human helplessness, of human insufficiency, until we will rest no more upon human plans, but have God‘s thoughts, God‘s voice, and God the Holy Spirit to speak to us. Now here is a word for us: “And see, now I go bound in the spirit” (Acts 20:22). There is the Word. Is that a possibility? Is there a possibility for a person to align himself so completely with the divine will of God?

    Jesus was a man, flesh and blood like us, while at the same time, He was the incarnation of divine authority, power, and majesty of the glory of heaven. He bore in His body the weaknesses of human flesh. He was tempted “in all points…as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). He is so lovely, such a perfect Savior. Oh, that I could shout ―Jesus‖ in such a way that the world would hear. There is salvation, life, power, and deliverance through His name. But, beloved, I see that “the Spirit drove Him” (Mark 1:12), that He was “led by the Spirit” (Luke 4:1), and here comes Paul “bound in the spirit” (Acts 20:22).

    What an ideal condescension of heaven that God should lay hold of humanity and possess it with His holiness, His righteousness, His truth, and His faith so that Paul could say, ― I go bound‟ (v. 22); I have no choice. The only choice is for God. The only desire or ambition is God‘s. I am bound with God. Is it possible, beloved?

    If you look at the first chapter of Galatians, you will see how
    wonderfully Paul rose to this state of bliss. If you look at the third chapter of Ephesians, you see how he became “less than the least of all saints” (v. 8). In Acts 26, you will hear him say, “King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision” (v. 19). In order to keep the vision, he yielded not to flesh and blood. God laid hold of him; God bound him; God preserved him. I ought to say, however, that it is a wonderful position to be preserved by the Almighty. We ought to see to it in our Christian experience that when we commit ourselves to God, the consequences will be all right. He who “seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it” (Luke 17:33).

    What is it to be bound by the Almighty, preserved by the Infinite? There is no end to God‘s resources. They reach right into glory. They never finish on the earth. God takes control of a man in the baptism of the Holy Spirit as he yields himself to God. There is the possibility of being taken and yet left—taken charge of by God and left in the world to carry out His commands. That is one of God‘s possibilities for humanity: to be taken over by the power of God while being left in the world to be salt as the Scripture describes (Matt. 5:13).

    Thought for today: The way to get up is to get down.

  • Sins of Omission

    Omission and commission

    In the beginning when God created mankind, He gave two commands: one regarding something they were to do and the other regarding something they were not to do. They were told to be fruitful and multiply, and they were told not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

    Man did not do what he was told to do. This was a sin of omission. Instead, he focused on trying not to do what he was told not to do. In the end, he wound up doing it anyway, and that was a sin of commission.  

    The interesting thing is that when he didn’t do what he was commanded to do (a sin of omission) he didn’t consider it sin; but as soon as he did what he was told not to do (a sin of commission) he knew he had sinned, and he ran and hid from God. Unfortunately, I think that is still true of man today.

    We often don’t do what God speaks to us about doing in His Word or by His Spirit. And we don’t consider this sin, because we haven’t really “done” anything (which is actually the problem). When the Holy Spirit tries to convict us, we tell Him we will do it someday, we just cannot do it right now. But delayed obedience is disobedience which is sin, for God says in His Word:

    James 4:17 “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.”

    I think the Lord is more concerned about us doing what He is telling us to do than He is about us doing what He tells us not to do. Consider for example the first and second great commandments: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. If we obeyed these two commandments we would not disobey all the “thou shalt nots.”

    Galatians 5:14 “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’”  

    Jesus gave us, the Church, a couple of commands just before He ascended into Heaven: Get baptized with the Holy Spirit, and go into the world and make disciples of all nations. Sadly, many Christians ignore these commands and focus on not sinning. In reality, they are sinning by not doing what they were told to do, and they often end up doing what they are told not to do anyway.

    Isn’t this command to go and make disciples similar to the command that God gave to Adam and Eve when He told them to be fruitful and multiply? Do you think that if Eve had obeyed God and had a baby on her side and a toddler at her feet that she would have been hanging around with the serpent at the tree whose fruit brings forth death?

    Likewise, if we as Christians would obey Christ, get filled with the Spirit and make some disciples, it would go a long way to keeping us from doing the things we are not supposed to do. For one thing our minds would be focused on our mission and not on the things we are commanded not to do. And, if we have a young disciple following us around, we are more likely to stay far away from sin, for fear of causing them to stumble and fall.

    More omission

    Sin begins in the mind. What we think about is what we do. The old adage, sow a thought, reap an action, is true, and God, the devil, and advertisers understand this principle very well. That is why God commands us to study His Word. So it gets in our minds. It is why He commands us to preach the Gospel to the world: so He can plant His truth in people’s minds.

    And that is why the devil’s greatest strategy and efforts go toward planting thoughts in our minds. It is also why advertisers spend millions of dollars on thirty-second commercials, so they can get you thinking about their products. They know that if you do, you will probably end up buying them.

    Let’s look at what the Father says in His Word about this subject of the mind.

    Romans 8:6 “To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” 

    Colossians 3:2 “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.”

    Isaiah 26:3 “You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You.”

    The value we get from coming before the Father first thing each morning to focus our minds and hearts on Him, His love, and His Word; His goodness, kindness, forgiveness; His concern, will, plan, purpose, and provision – is that we are focusing our minds on what we want to have influencing and controlling our actions throughout that day.

    The devil, on the other hand, wants us to focus our minds on the things of the world. That is what he did with Eve: he got her focused on the tree. If he can get us focused on sin – even if it is by him telling us that we cannot do that sin – he has already won. When we focus our thinking on something, even if it is with the intent of not doing it, it is usually only a matter of time before we end up doing it.

    If my weakness is alcohol and every morning I wake up thinking that I cannot have a drink today, then the devil has me thinking about having a drink from the time my day begins. I spend my day focused on not having a drink, and while I may not drink that day, week, month or year, I will more than likely drink again at some point because I am thinking about it all the time. Even if I do not drink, the devil has still won because I am focusing on not drinking rather than focusing on God and on His will, plan, and purpose for my life. I will therefore not accomplish anything for Him and His kingdom that day.

    Let us focus our hearts and minds on God and on His will; on what He would have us do each day; and as we do we will live a fruitful life of peace, love, and joy for His glory. Let’s not focus our minds on sin, even if it is on not committing that sin. Because if we do, we will end up committing a sin of omission, even if we do not commit the sin we were focused on not doing. We will omit doing God’s will by not doing with our life what God would have had us to do that day.

    Even more omission

    How concerned is God about us doing His will and how important is it for us to do it? Not doing God’s will is the essence of sin, and not doing God’s will will keep us from entering into Heaven for only those who do the will of the Father will enter into Heaven.

     Matthew 7:21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in Heaven.”

    Clearly, Jesus is telling us here that one of the requirements of entering into Heaven is to do the will of the Father. God is not bringing people into Heaven who still live in rebellion against Him. If He did, they would turn Heaven into what they have turned earth into: a place of crime, wars, sickness, death, and perversion.

    If we are not living as citizens of His kingdom here on earth, we should not be surprised if we are left out of His kingdom there in Heaven. The flip side of that is what the Lord spoke through John in one of his letters:

    1 John 2:17 “But he who does the will of the Father abides forever.”

    The kingdom of God is the place where His will is being done. It begins here on earth and then naturally translates into eternity.

    Let’s look at an example of two men in the Old Testament who exemplify this truth. One did not do the will of God and the other one did. We will start with King Saul. God spoke by Samuel to Saul, telling him to go down to Gilgal and wait there for seven days until Samuel came to offer the sacrifices. After that, He would come and show Saul what he should do. Saul did not wait, though; he did not do what the Lord commanded him to do. As a result, Saul lost the kingdom.

    1 Samuel 13:13-14 “And Samuel said to Saul, ‘You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which He commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.’”

    It appears that Saul did not love nor fear the Lord, and so he did not obey His commands. David is the man of God’s choosing; the man after God’s own heart. But when we compare David’s sins of adultery and murder with Saul’s sin of not obeying the Lord and waiting for Samuel to get there before offering a sacrifice it seems like David’s sins are much worse than Saul’s sin. Yet David was not removed from being king after his sins.

    Acts 13:22: “And when He had removed him [Saul], He raised up for them David as king, to whom also He gave testimony and said, ‘I HAVE FOUND DAVID THE SON OF JESSE, A MAN AFTER MY OWN HEART WHO WILL DO ALL MY WILL.’”

    The difference between Saul and David was that David loved and feared the Lord and would do all of His will. He would do whatever God told him to do. Now, was he a perfect man? No. We know that David did things he should not have done – numbering the people and the sins involving Bathsheba and Uriah – and that God brought terrible consequences upon him, his family, and the nation because of those sins. But David repented, and God never took the kingdom away from him for the sins he committed. But He did end Saul’s reign because of his sins of omission, not doing what God commanded him to do.

    Maybe the lesson here is, if we do what God tells us to do, He can still use us even though we are not perfect; but if we don’t obey Him, He can no longer use us as He would like. Now, please do not misunderstand what I am saying here. I am not saying that God does not care about sins of commission but only sins of omission. I believe that both if not confessed and repented of will take us to Hell.

    The fear then, is that we often focus on our sins of commission and ignore our sins of omission, and I think that makes our sins of omission more dangerous. If for no other reason, because if we do not consider them sin we will not confess them and repent of them!

    Seek the Lord

    When Paul quotes David and lists the sins of man in Romans 3:10-18, among them is the sin of not seeking God, which is another sin of omission.

    Romans 3:10 “As it is written, ‘There is none righteous; no, not one. There is none who understand; there is none who seek after God.”

    Most people (including many Christians) are waiting for God to take the lead, speaking to them from a burning bush or something. They take no initiative in seeking Him and seeking His plan, will, purpose, and destiny for their lives. As they are waiting on God, God is waiting on them.

    And the ball is on our court, so to speak. It is our move. God has already done all that He needs to do. He has revealed Himself to us through His creation, through the Bible, and through the nation of Israel; through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and through those whom He has saved, transformed, and sent into the world to preach His Gospel.   

    Romans 1:20 “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.”

    We are therefore responsible for seeking Him and His will for us. Jesus commanded us to seek, and guaranteed us that if we do, we will find. In fact the Bible is filled with commands, exhortations, and urgings for us to seek the Lord, and these are not directed to the unsaved only, but God’s people are also urged to seek Him:

    Acts 17:27 “So that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.” 

    Isaiah 55:6 “Seek the Lord while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near.”

    Psalm 27:8 “When You said, ‘Seek My face,’ My heart said to You, ‘Your face, Lord, I will seek.’”

    Jeremiah 29:13 “You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart.”

    These are just a few of the dozens of Scriptures that deal with this topic. The Bible is filled with them because it is such a vital issue to our lives. We may not grasp how critical it is to seek the Lord and His will for us, but the devil does, and he has a grand strategy for keeping us from spending the time and energy that is required to be successful in this endeavor. His favorite strategy is distraction!

    He does not care what you give your time, affections, and energies to, as long as they are not used in pursuing God and His will and plan for your life. He does not care how noble, virtuous, or good a pursuit may be, and he does not care how wicked, sinful, or ungodly it may be, as long as it keeps you from God.

    Let us not continue to be prey to his strategy any longer. Let’s put off all the worldly distractions and seek the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and He will reward us greatly.

    Hebrews 11:6 “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” 

    The reward for ceasing the sin of omission in not seeking God as we are commanded to do is that when we seek Him we will find Him, and His will, plan, and purpose for our life. We will begin to enjoy the joy and fulfillment that we experience in knowing the Father and Son and that comes from being and doing what They created and redeemed us to do, starting now and continuing into eternity.

    What are you seeking now that compares to that?