-Transcript-
00:36 Amen. Welcome to the program. Good to have you with us here today. We’re getting into God’s Word today as we always do, talking about a critical subject in the Bible, a very important subject in the Bible, and that is that it’s time to seek the Lord.
00:54 Now is the time to seek God in our lives. 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. Oh what a beautiful verse.
01:13 Remember at that time, Bible times, agriculture was a means to feed themselves, their families. It was a means for commerce, to trade, to make a living. It was everything.
01:24 Agriculture then is, I would say, kind of like technology is today. Everybody’s caught up in technology in some way or another, right? That’s the big hot industry, the industry that many are finding themselves in, working in. People, my wife works in IT.01:40 She never thought she’d work in IT. She got a degree in psychology. She works in IT and the doctor was laughing at her the other day.
01:51 And, but that’s the world we live in. That’s where everything is at. And back then, the world they lived in was all about agriculture.
01:55 And so Hosea gives us this great scripture here, advice, counsel, godly counsel, to sow or to plant seeds of righteousness. What does that mean? That means that we need to live like Christ, Amen. We need to seek the Lord as Christ sought Father God. We need to seek the Lord in the same regard.
02:15 We need to live righteously, which means we need to live Christ-like. And that’s hard, to plant those seeds, to share with others, Christ, when we ourselves feel empty. But we reap in God’s mercy when we live for the Lord and we seek him, we will have His mercy upon Him.
02:33 And while we are undeserving, he will come to us, Amen We have that fallow ground or that ground that’s been left unplanted for a period of time. And oh, how we need to plant those seeds of righteousness in that fallow ground and let that regeneration occur. You know that word regenerate? That’s what happens to us when we are born again as Christians, Amen. We are born to a new life.
02:55 We are born to Christ, who is called the last Adam, Amen. We were first born to the first Adam when we were born here on earth. And when we get saved, we’re born again to the last Adam. That’s Christ Jesus.
03:06 We are made new. We are given an eternal home in glory. Our name has been written down in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
03:13 And so we have this land that has been left unplanted, do we not? We have land that needs to be sown, do we not? We have inside of us areas of our life that we have not handed over to God. We have things that we do that are not good, amen? We have things that we do that are not productive. We say that we don’t have time to seek God because we really, nothing in us desires to seek God, if we are honest.
03:38 The Bible tells us that no man desires God naturally, that all have fallen short, that all have sinned, that our righteousness is as dirty rags. The nature of man in of Himself is a worm and is not right with God, Amen. The Bible says the natural man is enmity or warfare with God. We are literally at war with God naturally.
03:59 And when we’re saved, we’re born again, we’re given the Holy Spirit, and that spiritual battle is taking place inside. And the ways of the Spirit and the ways of the flesh are different, completely different. They’re at odds.
04:11 They are oil and vinegar. They don’t mix, Amen. And the Spirit and the flesh, they war with each other, the Bible tells us. And so what do we need to do? We need to be obedient Christians.
04:21 We need to seek the Lord, Amen, until He comes and rains righteousness upon us. So how do we do that? Well, number one, as I always say, oh, we need to get into God’s Word, read it, and we need to pray a lot, right? And we need to go to church, serve God, etc. But the crux of, you know, get into His Word, a living Word, apply it to your life, and so on and so on.
04:42 And I hear from the congregation, I’m busy, and I’m beating down, and I got this, and I got that, and I said, okay, okay, let me think about how we can do this. Let me pray on how we can do this, me included, I’m busy too, Amen, how we can do this beyond just our regular read the Bible, you know, Bible time, devotional time, okay? And so I have devotional time with the Lord every single day, and I am in the ministry, so I guess that’s part of it, right? I feel like this is my job. I need to study the Scripture so I can share it with you appropriately.
05:11 So I try to get out of my own shoes and think about people that are in the working world that aren’t necessarily in the ministry, how can they spend time with God? And in the previous episode, we came up with a few strategies to substitute time with God for a regular routine. And so you have some routine like hitting golf balls, or going to the gym, or whatever, and just taking maybe one day a week, or two days a week, and substituting Bible study in at the library or coffee shop, somewhere where you can really dial in and study and seeing what God does there. I spoke about a prayer walk, Amen. Walking with God, literally, there’s nothing more beautiful than a prayer walk.
05:48 Doctors tell us that when you walk, your mind thinks better, something about the blood pumping. I know that is the most unscientific definition, but look it up, I’m not lying to you, Amen. When you walk, you think better, and so if you walk and you think better, how about when you walk and you pray? That’s probably a real good time to pray, as your mind, as your intellect connects with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit of God. The Bible tells us we’ll utter prayers that we can’t even utter to the Father, Amen. Through Jesus Christ the Mediator.
06:15 So commit to a prayer walk daily. I spoke on art being inspired by God, spending time taking a scripture and drawing it on a sketch pad, or painting, or coloring. I’m an artistic, creative person, much more than a scientific person, if you couldn’t figure out by my definition earlier here.
06:33 But I like, I’ll take a graphic design software, a cheap one or a free one, and I’ll work up t-shirt designs, little simple t-shirts. I’m wearing one today that says Army of the Lord, a Joel 2:11, and it’s got like a military style font on it. It says Army of the Lord, and I got this old cheap t-shirt printer in my house, we print up these t-shirts.
06:56 That’s just a way to be artsy. You don’t have to do all that. You can sketch it on a pad.
06:58 You can do, you can, you can write a poem to the Lord, amen? You can have a journal. You can get an app. And that’s my next idea, is trade a bad app for a good one.
07:12 We’re all on our phones so much, and that real estate on our phone, we protect it, don’t we? We don’t want to put every little app on our phone for those that have smartphones. And yes, I know many still have a flip phone. I had a flip phone for a long time until I couldn’t bear it anymore.
07:27 And in full disclosure, I had a smartphone at work, or I had a smart work phone and a flip phone. I guess you call a dumb phone, and the dumb phone worked better than the smartphone for a long time. But eventually I gave in, now I just have the smartphone.
07:42 But we all have these phones for the most part. We got apps on the phones. Why don’t we get rid of an app that is doing nothing for God? Now I want, I’m not gonna say which app that would be.
07:51 Maybe it’s, who knows? I’m not gonna get into which app it would be. But automatically coming to mind would be something with social media, right? Now yes, social media can be good to lift up God and so forth. But so much of it is like gossip, and there’s this thing called fear of missing out, FOMO, which is this whole thing that makes people anxious or whatever it is, or insecure.
08:13 There’s addictive natures of social media. You know, just cut it out. Just delete it.
08:25 Say, I’m gonna delete the social media app, and I’m gonna put a Bible app on my phone. Now I’m not saying you have to get rid of all social media. There’s a lot of good, especially when you connect with old people and so forth, or get on the groups and so forth.
08:33 Our church has a Facebook page. There’s nothing wrong with social media, but if it is something that’s taking a lot of your time, why not trade that app for a godly app, like a Bible app or a devotional app, ideally in the King James Version. Why not do that? You know, and say, you know what? Every time I want to tap on this app, I’m gonna open this other one instead, because the other one is gone.
08:56 You see, trade a bad app for a good one. I feel like that might resonate with young kids, Amen. They call it digital natives. They’re on their phones all the time.
09:02 They know exactly what I’m talking about, especially if they’re playing a game that’s not godly, that’s perverse, that’s run by the devil. Get that thing off of your phone, Amen. It don’t belong on your phone. You’re a child of God, Amen. That devil’s trespassing.
09:14 You’re a child of God, and why don’t you put something godly on your phone, amen? And what could be a Bible app for preaching, whatever it is, get something, trade it out, good for a bad, and see if that doesn’t improve your time with God or seeking God. How about going old school? You got your Bible, set a Bible reading goal, okay? Set a Bible reading goal with a reward at the end, okay? Now, we’ve done this in our church, somewhat successfully, somewhat not successfully, but I’ve challenged the church, and I told them, look, if you guys read all these scriptures, I will take you to such-and-such a restaurant, and it was a very, very nice restaurant that everybody really wanted to go to. And some people, they really got on it and did all the scriptures.
10:02 Others couldn’t and didn’t, whatever it was, okay? And that’s just an honest assessment. But when you personally commit and say, look, I’m gonna read, I’m gonna read the New Testament in the next three months, or I’m gonna read the whole Bible in six months. I like goals that are a little bit shorter.
10:18 You know, I’m gonna read all of the Paul’s epistles in 30 days, okay? You make a goal, and then at the end of that goal, add a reward. Give yourself an incentive. I think that that’s a godly thing to do.
10:31 I think it’s good to have rewards. We’ve been on the radio a little less than two years, and I use some equipment I use is pretty decent. Some of it is pretty old, and I’ve been looking at nicer equipment for the radio, and I said, not yet, not yet.
10:45 We just kind of scraped by here, Amen, Lord knows. But I set a goal. I said, you know what? When we get to that two-year mark of being on the radio, I’m gonna upgrade some equipment, and if the Lord provides, Amen, Lord willing.
10:59 And the point I made to my congregation in explaining this example is, I believe the Lord will provide. So I set that goal, saying I’m gonna honor God, I’m gonna be patient, and I’m gonna continue on. We do a message all the time, pretty much, every day of the week.
11:14 I think we’re on the air. Praise God to that. He gets all the glory for that, and I’m gonna just be patient, so try to save a few pennies here and there, and at our two-year mark, I’ll see if I can upgrade to better equipment, better microphone, whatever it may be.
11:29 Now, you can apply that to the Bible. You can say, I’m going to try to do this, this, and this, and there’s a reward, and that may be that extra motivation that you need to study the Bible a little more closely, to carve out a little more time to seek God, because what I’m doing is putting some earthly, worldly reward on it, but what God does when you seek Him, as our text verse tells us, is He will open up that honey bucket of blessings, and He’ll bless you spiritually, and that’s much better than materially. He’ll give you discernment.
12:01 He’ll give you wisdom. He’ll give you peace in the midst of trials. He’ll give you joy.
12:09 He goes before you. He’ll give you discernment over things that are happening in your life. He’ll give you closeness with family and friends.
12:15 He’ll give you a wonderful marriage. Amen. I’ve been married to my wife.
12:22 It’ll be nine years next month, and people ask sometimes, you guys never really fight, and of course, that’s because I don’t talk back. Amen. I learned that after, I think, the first month of marriage or two, but the real reason we’re close is because we put God first, and we put God first in word and deed, and the Lord provides the increase
.12:37 The Lord provides the blessing. We are close because God has given us peace because He is first in our lives. So set a Bible goal, put an earthly reward on it, and that will become second or third or not even in mind compared to what God will do as you seek Him through His Word.
12:54 Another way to seek Him is form a Bible study. Get involved in some kind of teaching role in a Bible study. Do a Zoom one or in-person women’s meeting, teens meeting, athlete meeting, workers meeting, mathematician meeting, cooks meeting, whatever it is.
13:09 You find the niche that you’re in and have a Bible study, and that will force you to seek the Lord as you prepare for that Bible study, as you get together for that Bible study, and as it goes on. Amen. That will be another way to seek God, and these are all ways.
13:24 I wish I could go on. We will in the next episode, but these are all ways to get you into a routine or a habit of seeking God in your everyday life, of going beyond just the normal stuff that you’ve tried, and maybe it’s worked, maybe it’s not, and making God a priority enough to innovate and to do new things to seek Him in the old ways. Amen.
13:44 Don’t you love that? Doing new things to seek Him in the old ways, in the old-time way. The Bible is the living Word. Amen.
13:51 It worked for the saints of God many days ago, many years ago, and it works today. Amen. The same God delivered Moses and the Israelites back there at the Red Sea will deliver you today and tomorrow and for the rest of eternity.
14:02 That’s our God. Why not seek Him? Why not commit to seeking Him with all our lives and all that we do? I thank you for listening. Again, tune in next time as we dive into more ways to seek the Lord.
14:14 Take care, God bless, and Amen.