-Transcript-
00:36 Amen. Welcome to the program. Great to be here.
00:41 Welcome to the cafe. I should say I said program but I meant cafe. Welcome to the cafe.
00:49 Good to have you here today. Today we are getting into God’s Word as we always do. And we’re looking at practical ways to seek the Lord.
00:54 And this whole series of episodes is on practical ways to seek the Lord. Hosea 10:12, sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground. For it is time to seek the Lord till he come and reign righteousness upon you.
01:12 I love this verse. This is so good. It’s so applicable for us today.
01:18 You know, if we want to get close to God, we need to do something. Amen. You know, I believe the Bible says that we are justified by faith, that it’s impossible to please God without faith.
01:33 And so follow this logic. If you have faith that God is who he says he is, and he’s a rewarder of them that diligently seek him, as Hebrews 11:6 tells us, if you have that faith, then you’d seek him, right? And if you choose not to seek him, like if you say, Oh, yeah, I’m a Christian, but I’m totally in the world. Do you really have faith? Do you really believe today? The Bible tells us without faith, it’s impossible to please God.
01:54 I don’t know about you, but I want to please God. I want to be close to God. I want God’s power on my life.
02:03 And I know in order to have any of these things, I have to seek the Lord. And I know for you to have any of these things, you too have to seek the Lord. And as you sow to yourselves in righteousness, as you plant those seeds of righteousness, which only come by Christ Jesus, amen, you will reap in mercy and God’s mercy, and He’ll show up.
02:21Amen. Even though you’re undeserving, he will show up. Even though I’m undeserving, deserving, even though I’m a sinner, and you’re a sinner, He will show up in our lives.
02:33 Amen. And He will show out because we have fallow ground. It says, break up your fallow ground.
02:37 What’s fallow ground? That is soil that has been left unplanted for a period of time. I believe it’s seven years in Bible times. They were called that six years they would have, they’d harvest their land on the seventh year, they’d let it rest.
02:52 They wouldn’t have any harvest. And this is how they ate and made a living back then. So they’d have to plant a whole lot in that sixth year, but that seventh year, they let it rest.
03:00 And then they’d plant again that next year and have a good harvest. That fallow ground is rested. There’s much rest in our lives.
03:07 Amen. We have much comforts, creature comforts in our lives, especially in countries like America here, where we’ve got air conditioning in the car, air conditioning in the house. We’ve got recliners and we’ve got sofas and we’ve got ergomatic office chairs.
03:22 I don’t know. Some kind of ergo office chair, which I guess means good for your posture, something like this. We have comforts everywhere.
03:32 And what do we do? We rest. Well, now it’s time to regenerate. Amen.
03:36 That’s what the Bible says. And to get on fire for God, to plant those seeds of righteousness, to reap mercy. Matter of fact, the end of this verse says, it’s time to seek the Lord till He come and rain righteousness upon you.
03:48 We are to keep seeking him until we have that righteousness raining upon us. And by the way, when that happens, you’ll keep seeking him because you will love what you receive. And so how do we do that? How do we seek God today? How do we take this agricultural reference and apply it to our lives in modern day society? I came up with a list and I prayed over this list.
04:09 God knows. And it helps people, I believe, get close to God. And I did this because I care for my congregation.
04:20 I’m in the ministry. It is my job, amen, to study God’s word. It’s my most important job to study God’s word.
04:28 And I view myself as someone that studies God’s word and shares what I learned. I don’t have to create anything new. I just take what God has in His word.
04:37 The Holy Spirit helps me to discern, and I share it. But for those that are working a full time job, for those that are in school full time, for those that are very busy, they’re not in the ministry, let’s say, how do they seek God? Here are some ideas. Number one, substitute time with God for a regular routine.
04:55 Can you think of a routine in your life that is not godly? Let’s say it’s not necessarily bad. It’s just has nothing to do with seeking God, right? If you go and hit golf balls, there’s nothing wrong with hitting golf balls at the driving range, unless you’re me, because I need an iron to hit it. I can’t hit it with a driver.
05:19 I say, give me the iron, and I’ll line up and try to whack that ball. I guess, I don’t know why, but unless you’re me, you know, nothing wrong with hitting golf balls, okay? But is that time with God? Maybe it is.
05:32 Maybe you’re out there slugging these balls, and you’re praying to God, you’re collecting your thoughts and all, but maybe it’s just cutting up with buddies or just sitting there mindless, right? Well, what if, let’s say, you go and hit golf balls three days a week? What if one of those days a week, you said, instead of hitting golf balls, which I know I have time to do, I know that I’ve gone and done this for many years, I’m going to spend, I’m going to block out this time to seek God through studying His word.
05:57 I’m going to block out this time. Oh, I know that I can’t do it at home. It’s too crazy at home.
06:03 Kids are running around and all this stuff. I’ve got distractions there. I’ll go to a local coffee shop or I’ll go to a park if the weather’s nice or the library, and I’m going to block out one hour, eat this this day when I normally hit golf balls or two hours, whatever it is, and I’m going to seek God’s word.
06:18 See, you’ve replaced a habit that wasn’t that productive with one that’s extremely productive. It pleases God when his people seek him. And I don’t think God would frown upon this idea.
06:31 Matter of fact, I believe the Lord inspired me to share an idea like this. And the reason being that it’s practical. You’re already doing something that maybe is not seeking God that you could substitute seeking God for.
06:45 And the reason why I said substitute is because many people will say, I just don’t have time. And then the preacher will say, make time. And it just kind of is a stalemate.
06:55 Well, here we can get past that stalemate by saying, I’m not asking you to make any new time, just substitute some time that you’re already spending with God and just see what God does. See if he doesn’t open up a little softness in your heart. See if that Holy Spirit doesn’t kick inside you a little bit.
07:09 See if you don’t have an idea for the ministry a little bit. See if you don’t just have a little bit more peace and joy in your walk with God. And again, you may be going through many trials.
07:19 It may be very hard to have happiness or giddiness, amen, but you can still have peace. You can still have joy because that is not dependent on this world. That’s dependent on the Lord and He never changes.
07:30 All right. Another idea to seek the Lord is to commit to a daily prayer walk. Now, many of you go walking each day.
07:37 The doctor says it’s good for our health. Amen. My father-in-law, he’s 80 something now, and he’s got strength like an ox.
07:47 I’ll tell you that he’s very strong for his age. And he’s, he had some heart troubles many years ago. Doctor told him to start walking.
07:55 So he goes to the mall down the street here from our house and he goes and walks either on the outside of the mall or inside the mall. He’ll walk an hour, hour and a half. I don’t know what it is.
08:04 And it’s really helped his heart. Amen. And I go walk and we live on an old dairy farm that’s been converted where they put some houses up here.
08:18 And I walk the little roads out here or I’ll even cross the street and walk the roads out there. And I like walking. But one thing I noticed about walking is it’s a perfect opportunity to pray to God.
08:29 You know, you should commit to a prayer walk. And you say, Brother Clark, my neighborhood’s not walk friendly, not pedestrian friendly, as they’d say. If you have a treadmill or if you go to a gym or a YMCA, you could do it that way.
08:43 Again, you go to the mall and walk around. They won’t stop you. Amen.
08:50 Whatever it is, take a prayer walk, walk and pray. Amen. Go to the park.
08:52 Go to one of the trails, the greenways. Look it up on your phone. Look it up online.
08:57 Ask a friend where they like to go walk. Everybody, a lot of times I like to go walk with friends. Well, what happens there? Probably a lot of discussion.
09:04 And unfortunately, a lot of times it’s gossip. Why don’t we take a break from the gossip and the discussion and get close to God and walk with God and walk and talk to God and pray and seek the Lord? And if you don’t know how to do that, simply just walk and start praying. Start thinking on the scriptures.
09:21 Start praying to God. Spend time with him. Meditate on his word.
09:27 And that prayer walk will help you get closer to him. And if you were to substitute an activity once or twice a week or even every day to seek God, and on top of that, you were to commit to a prayer walk once, twice a week or every day to seek God. Now you’re really seeking God.
09:43 The next one I have here is how about art inspired by God? You know, there are a lot of creative people out there, people that love to paint or to draw or to write or whatever it may be. And that is a wonderful activity to focus on God. We have a little business.
10:03 We sell Christian scripture cups and stuff like that. One of the businesses that I have personally, my family, and I noticed one of the suppliers that we use, they sell a lot of these coloring books. And the coloring books aren’t for kids or for adults.
10:19 And they’re Christian coloring books. And they’re not like with crayons. You would use a colored pencil and you color in either, they’d be like scripture or a scripture with a picture around it.
10:31 And it’s kind of like meditative as you focus on the scripture, you color it in. So, you know, if you’re wanting to do that, that’s a great way to spend time with God, to seek God. As long as your thoughts are on God and your thoughts are on that scripture, you’re seeking God.
10:45 Or maybe you’re more creative than that. And you can sketch on a pad and draw a picture. Maybe you’re a technology person.
10:53 There are great art apps out there. You probably know them better than I do. You can get on an iPad or your cell phone.
11:00 There’s fantastic art apps out there. And I mean, I pay a lot of, a fair bit of money, I would say, for our software to do a lot of the stuff that we do. And these apps are much, much cheaper and very, very powerful.
11:10 And I was joking with my wife and said, why do we need all this software to produce this stuff? These apps are like five or 10 bucks and they’re almost just as powerful. You get you an app and you start drawing on the app, whatever it is. Think about what you could do with that.
11:24 You could put it on your wall. You could text it to a friend. You could scan it in and make a picture out of it or put it, you could put it on a canvas.
11:35 You could print it out. You can make it into a poster. You could create a book.
11:41 You could, again, share it with a friend when they’re in a hard time, a time of need and say, hey, I drew this and I was thinking of you and I’m praying for you. You know, there’s amazing things you got to understand. God wants us to seek Him, not just to bring Him glory, though it does, but for our benefit.
11:58 Like think of the doors that God opens when we seek him. When we get outside of ourselves and we start seeking God almighty, He will open doors. He’ll open ministry opportunities.
12:09 You may be there at a coffee shop drawn a beautiful garden and they say, what are you doing? You said, I’m just drawing garden. I believes in heaven. And here’s some scripture about heaven.
12:18 Who knows what conversation that may lead to. And you may plant that seed. And they said, do you really believe and say, yeah, I believe.
12:26 And this is why I believe. And let me tell you about what God’s done in my life. Amen.
12:31 You know, God gave you the gift of art and we see so much of the art world has been perverted as it not. It’s been perverted by the little g God of this world and it’s become all kinds of disgusting stuff, but there is still a pureness in just art. Art of itself is not bad.
12:47 And when you perform it for God, when you draw, when you paint, when you do all of these other things for God, it is glory to God. Amen. We have one thing we passed out.
13:02 I’ll wrap up for today is a sheet and you color in it’s a sheet. It’s like a drawing sheet and you color in each book of the Bible that you read. And so you can visually see how you’re progressing through those 66 books of the Bible.
13:15 And it’s beautiful. And even the kids, they would love to coloring on. I don’t know if they’re reading every, all the books they colored, but for adults, it’s a great way to show progress.
13:27 And you’re using your artistic side and you’re reading and seeking God. And these things are working symbiotically. They’re working together and you’re growing in the Lord.
13:33 And you don’t even know you’re growing in the Lord. You’re just doing things that are naturally fun and interesting to you. And this is how we should seek the Lord.
13:40 It doesn’t have to be stodgy all the time. It doesn’t have to be in a classroom setting or even in your car, listening to preaching. It can also be in things like this, in doing art for God and doing it for His glory.
13:51 Amen. And just seeking Him in your everyday life, saturating your life in the things of God and the ways of God. And again, it’s for our good.
14:00 It’s for our blessing. And we will have that righteousness rain down on us if we do this, as the book of Hosea tells us. I thank you so much for listening.
14:11 Tune in next time as we go into more great ideas to seek the Lord. Take care. God bless and Amen.