"You have said, 'Seek my face.' My heart says to you, 'Your face, Lord, do I seek.'" - Psalm 27:8
"Many seek the face of a ruler, but it is from the Lord that a man gets justice." - Proverbs 29:26
Point: God calls us to "seek his face" (Psalm 27:8) because through a face to face encounter with the Lord alone are things in our lives truly made right (Proverbs 29:26).
When I was very small and we lived in Memphis, TN, my parents would take us tadpole hunting. Ya know, searching for baby frogs. We'd catch 'em, bring 'em home, and watch 'em grow up.
I also remember searching for baseball cards for my collection, for pro football stickers for a big book that was a gas station promotion, and for coins like wheat pennies and 1964-and-earlier silver quarters.
Searching for many things is fun. Searching for God is critical.
I've experienced many folks through the years who call the church and want something, obviously believing that the church has a willingness to help, whether it's with food or a place to get married or the baptism of their child. I've also experienced how most of these inquirers have every desire to see the generosity of God's people, but these inquirers have no desire to become a contributor to God's work. I never get mad. But it does make me sad because, though I'm thrilled that people recognize that a church is a good place to get something, I see that many don't understand that a church is a good place to give something.
No church is perfect; every church is filled with sinners for whom Jesus died. But a church is a place to search for more than coins, baseball cards, tadpoles, and stickers. A church is a place to seek God. And our searching for God is critical because God says that our search for God leads us to discover that God has first and ever-faithfully been searching for us.
Let me say it again; our search for God leads us to discover that God has first and ever-faithfully been searching for us.
Searching for many things is fun. Searching for God is critical.
"You have said, 'Seek my face.' My heart says to you, 'Your face, Lord, do I seek.'" - Psalm 27:8
"Many seek the face of a ruler, but it is from the Lord that a man gets justice." - Proverbs 29:26
Praise God!
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
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