Longing For God Himself

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about our need to seek after God and how that relates to our prayer life. After thinking about it for many months and letting it sink into my own soul, this past Sunday I started preaching about it in a series called "Power To Change."

It seems to me that we have tried every method and every church growth strategy to grow the church in North America. There was the church growth movement then the seeker sensitive movement and now the missional movement. All of those movements have had their good points and their bad points but it seems to me that the harder we try the weaker the church has become and the more marginalised we are in our society and the harder we have tried to be relevant to our culture the less relevant we have become.

The great prophet of prayer E.M. Bounds once said, "What the church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men (and women, or course) whom the Holy Ghost can use - men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men - men of prayer." (E.M. Bound 1835-1913).

Listening to fellow pastor/elders and serious followers of Christ I have heard them repeatedly say, "I love Christ, but I am so dry." Surveys by George Barna and others have uncovered that the vast majority of born again Christians confess that they have not experienced intimate contact with God in the past year. It seems that Christ has redeemed us that we might have intimacy with God (John 15) and yet so many of us are not experiencing it. Our souls are dry and in need of fresh spiritual water that refreshes the soul. Could it be that all of our resources and methods and movements have actually hindered the very thing that gives us life and a vibrant Christian experience? Could it be that we need to return once again to the "spring of living water" (John 4:14; 7:38) and cultivate deep intimacy with God that would well up in our hearts and satisfy the deep thirst in our soul?

I have usually had a fairly vibrant spiritual life but I find deep in my soul a compelling yearning for intimacy with Christ. A yearning to go deeper, a yearning to know His surpassing greatness, to bask in His unfailing love, to walk in abiding fellowship with the lover of my soul. The thought of being successful wanes, the deception of greatness insignificant, and my soul longs for God Himself, that "I may know Him and the power of His resurrection"(Philippians 3:10).

It is said of Moses, "The LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend" (Exodus 33:11a). I will never be a Moses, but I believe that God redeemed me for deep intimacy. That we may speak as a man speaks to his friend.

I was not saved very long when I first experienced such intimacy with Christ as a lonely 12 year old boy in my upper room bedroom in downtown Toronto. It was the beginning of God’s life long plan to transform my life after the image of His Son. It is not that we always live on mountain top experiences, but I do believe that God has redeemed us to experience His manifest presence in our lives that does indeed transform our lives from the inside out.

I have been asking myself "does my heart treasure Christ more than what Christ can do for me?" Is He really my treasure? Having been redeemed, seeking Christ Himself is to be the ‘new normal’ in the life of the believer. After all, it is only Christ who satisfies our souls. He is the living water. Being His follower is not about being religious. It is about living in an intimate love relationship with Him. He made it abundantly clear that this was to be our first priority. When asked what was the greatest commandment He said, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength" (Mark 12:30).

Once Christ is what you seek, nothing else will satisfy. Once you have experienced deep intimacy with Him, nothing else will satisfy you. Intimacy puts the rest of life in a whole new perspective.

Many believers are discouraged with their spiritual experience and with their prayer lives because they do not experience intimacy. As already stated, most claim they have not connected with God in a meaningful way in the past year.

Innately, those who have been born again by the Spirit of God have an unquenchable desire for intimate fellowship with God. We long to know Him in a way that radically transforms our lives from the inside out.  When we don't don't cultivate that, our lives become stale and dry and our Christian experience unsatisfying.

The good news is that as we seek God with all our hearts, He provides for us, through Christ, living water that refreshes our soul. There is a place "near to the heart of God" where we find such refreshment and He has promised us "You will seek me and find me. When you seek me with all your heart, (Jeremiah 29:13).   I encourage you fellow follower,  seek God Himself with all your heart.   You will find Him and He will refresh your soul.

(Power To Change Sermons and resourceswill be available at www.parkwaybiblechurch.ca beginning March 15)