“Search for the Lord and for his strength; continually seek him.”
1 Chronicles 16:11 (NLT)
We learn a great deal from our biological parents about the kind of relationship that God wants with us. He’s our Father, and He wants us to lean on Him for everything. He wants to be involved in every aspect of our existences. Quite supernaturally, God wants to communicate with us, and He wants us to communicate with Him. Mutual communication establishes trust and intimacy, but we’re not the ones who set things up this way. It was all God’s doing. He alone established relationships and what it takes to keep them thriving. He has chosen us as His family. He wants to be close to us, and He wants us to be close to Him. He tells us that the intimacy we share as Father and children gets expressed through our faith. By this, we must recognize that sometimes God speaks to us in a way that is more intimate than words. We have a responsibility to recognize this and respond to Him.
God’s Word is always the foundation of His communication to us. God will never tell us something that is outside His Word. 2Peter 1:3(NLT) says, “By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence.” This extraordinary verse tells us that everything, all without exception, that pertains to living life through Jesus Christ is in God’s Word. We receive this knowledge about the way God wants us to live by learning what His Word says about Him and His limitless love.
Sometimes people will say they have heard God’s voice telling them to do things that God would never tell a person to do. He will never tell someone to gamble, to put harmful substances in their bodies, or to lie to others, especially for the sake of personal gain. God would not tell anyone to do these things. They are hearing the wrong voice, and because they don’t know God’s Word and have not studied and read the Bible, they lack discernment. They are being tricked. God tells us in Hosea 4:6 that His people are destroyed because they lack knowledge about Him, and indeed reject the knowledge of Him. We should never allow this to be said of us as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s our responsibility to recognize God’s voice by becoming knowledgeable about what He says in His Word.
Jesus Christ commands us in Matthew 6:33(ESV), “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” We need to seek God without ceasing. This includes prayer, study, and meditation in His Word. Psalm 1:1-3(NLT) says, “1 Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. 2 But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. 3 They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.” As God’s sons and daughters, we must always be exceedingly careful and discerning about taking advice from those that don’t honor God. Our Heavenly Father’s law is His Word, and if we delight in it and meditate on it continually, we will prosper. That’s God’s promise.
Seeking God through His Word must be a habit pattern for us. It should always be our go-to when it comes to hearing from God, but He also communicates with us internally, through His Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ said in John 16:13(NLT), “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.” This verse clearly conveys to us that the Holy Spirit speaks to us, and he tells us what he hears from Christ. God’s Word tells us that He will keep our feet from falling. He promises to protect and preserve us from all hurt, harm, and danger if we place our trust in Him. We know this because of God’s Word, and He is always faithful to His Word.
We can have an expectation that God will protect our lives, because He says this in His Word. So, if we’re planning to go to a place that presents a dangerous situation for us, we’re not going to read in the Bible, “Don’t got to the store on January 9th, at 2PM.” Instead, the Holy Spirit will give us a dream or a scripture, or we may perceive his prompting in our human spirits, and this prompting will alert us that danger is near. Because we know God’s Word, and we know about the Holy Spirit, we can then make ourselves pliable and open to receive warnings that keep us safe and spiritually strong.
Some of us get real upset when we think we’re not hearing from God in the intimate ways we’re accustomed to. It can mean a couple of things. #1, it might mean that we’ve got too much going on to clearly hear His voice, or #2, we simply need to assume a posture of being still and trusting Him with all that we are. Often, we’re too distracted with the worries and cares of the world, and we need to calm down so that we bring ourselves into His peace.
Life continually reminds us that God is not following our agendas, so we must seek Him continually, because He’s the One that runs the show. Our emotions and feelings cannot govern our relationship with Heavenly Father, only our faith can do that. Some of us have a poor habit of allowing emotions of doubt to intervene in our sacred time with Him. We need to reroute this. God doesn’t respond to doubt. He responds to our faith. Jesus Christ has commanded us to have faith in God. It’s not a suggestion. It’s a directive, and God means for us to trust Him. We must be committed to seek God because He is worthy to be sought. Good parents don’t forget about the needs of their children, and God will never forget about us. He is our sufficiency, our all and all, and He promises that if we have a heart to seek Him continually, we will find Him with arms wide open to help and love us. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Seek the Lord without Ceasing”, written by KLizzie, edited by Reverend Fran Mack, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2023. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! SMS is dedicated to inspiring and encouraging Christian Women through the Word of God.