Seek the Lord with all your heart

Jeremiah 29:13 (NIV)

This is what the Lord says: You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart.

To seek God is a discipline that the casual, carnal Christian cannot master.  Veteran Christian researcher, George Barna, published The Seven Faith Tribes: Who They Are, What They Believe, and Why They Matter (Tyndale House, 2009) where 66% of the adult population are casual Christians.  The other tribes are Captive Christians (16%), Jews (2%), Mormons (2%), Pantheists (2%), Muslims (0.5%), and Skeptics (11%).  According to Barna’s statistics, only 1 out of 7 Christians are truly committed to Christ.  In fact, Barna defines the casual Christian as a spiritually middle-of-the-road believer who is born again, but ambivalent about his/her faith, moderately active and theologically nominal.  The casual Christian is not fervent about his/her faith, unlike any of these other tribes.  Even the skeptic person is fervent about what he/she does not believe. The Casual Christian as a person who thinks of himself as a better person than if he were irreligious, yet does not invest much time and effort in the Christian faith.  Such a person does not view faith as central to his/her purpose or success in life.     

So, again, I write that the casual Christian will never be a person who will seek God.  It takes too much time and effort to seek God.  It takes what Barna calls the Captive Christian, someone who defines success in life as how obedient to the Word of God you can be by serving Christ consistently.  It takes great devotion to seek the Lord and most Christians do not have such devotion.  It’s just not that important in comparison to other aspects of life.

Seeking God is compared to searching for treasure (Proverbs 2:1-5).  It cannot be a casual exercise.  God promises that you will find Him if you seek Him with all of your heart. Seeking with all of your heart means that your total being is focused on having fellowship constantly with the Almighty.  You spend quality time daily reading His Word, praying to Him, listening to Him, worshipping Him, and serving Him through helping others.  Again, you cannot live a casual Christian life and expect to seek and find God.  Perhaps that is why so many Christians feel unfulfilled and disconnected from God; they have never truly found Him.   

Seeking and finding God takes a dedicated lifestyle, one so few Christians are willing to assume.  We tend not to seek God when our lives are comfortable.  If our temporal needs are met, we imagine that we can take care of ourselves and we forget about God.  Once you forget about God, there are serious consequences.  People who are seeking God the most are people who are suffering and find that the world and its value system cannot help or fulfill their need(s).  Only God can perfectly satisfy our hunger and our thirst, and He is always leading us in the direction of satisfaction in Him.        

God promises many blessings to those who seek and find Him.  Jesus said that if seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness you will everything essential you will ever need in your life (Matthew 6:33).  Seeking God brings rewards (Psalm 107:9, Hebrews 11:6), joy (Psalms 70:4; 105:3), peace (II Chronicles 14:7; 15:12-15), Revelation (Jeremiah 33:3) and security (Psalm 27:4-5). 

Are you one of the majority casual Christians who don’t seek the Lord because He is not a priority in your life or are you one of the minority captive Christians who seeks diligently through study and prayer and meditation and service every day to find the peace of mind experience that you have found Him?  II Chronicles15:2 declares this truth:  “The Lord will stay with you as long as you stay with Him! Whenever you seek Him, you will find Him. But if you abandon Him, He will abandon you”. 

So where is the Lord with you?  Are you His seeker or is your faith too casual to bother?