Communing with God
From the beginning of creation humanity was created to commune with God. Oswald Chambers wrote, “Prayer is not simply getting things from God, that is the most initial form of prayer; prayer is getting into perfect communion with God.” 1
As previously discussed in Encouraged to Intercede, God created you and me because He has a Father’s heart. He is a relational God, One who wants to connect and converse with His sons and daughters. Just as He showed our daughter the next location of our move, God wants you and me to learn how to commune with Him in order to pray and walk out our lives in agreement with Him. He desires each of us to seek Him in the same confidence and childlike faith of our four year old daughter.
To “seek” is to try to find something by searching and asking. It usually implies a process involving great intensity. Psalm 27:4-8 is a wonderful scriptural promise that David shares concerning his life-long quest to know God:
“One thing I have desired of the Lord, That I will seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, And to inquire in His Temple. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; In that secret place of His tabernacle he shall hide me, He shall set me high upon a rock. And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me; Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord. Hear. O Lord, when I cry with my voice! Have mercy also upon me, and answer me. When You said, ‘seek My face,’ My heart said to You ‘Your face, Lord, I will seek.’”
David was known as a man after God’s own heart. He was willing and obedient to seek God until he received the Lord’s mind and strategy. He communed with God concerning the issues he was facing and the struggles he was enduring. He really was a man that set his heart to hearing the Lord.
Seek His Kingdom First
Jesus explained in Matthew 6:33, “But seek [aim at and strive after] first of all His kingdom and His righteousness [His way of doing and being right], and then all these things taken together will be given you besides.” Amplified Bible
How do believers today implement Matt. 6:33? We begin by putting God first each day. This means we take time to pray and study God’s Word. It means we put God first in order to meet regularly with other believers. And we will also put God first every payday, giving Him our tithe. God becomes first in our choices, arriving at no decision that leaves Him out.
Abraham’s nephew, Lot, neglected to include God in his decisions and wound up in the wickedness of a cave, practicing atrocious sin! He did not put God first in his choice of a place to live and raise his family.
There are spiritual parallels for the material things in life. We need to seek to nourish our spiritual lives with spiritual food just as we seek to feed our bodies. We must ensure that our spiritual raiments are in order similar to the way we fuss over our physical garments. We drink natural water, but we need also to drink the water of life that Jesus gives.
I was raised in church my entire life and had a strong foundation in God’s Word. Through the Bible I understood right and wrong, and was encouraged to stay away from evil. I knew God, based on His Word and what was spoken and taught in church. But, I did not know God in the place of seeking and communing with Him in order to hear His voice. I am thankful that in seeking Him, He allowed me to get to know Him personally.