-Transcript-
00:36 Amen. Glory to God. Thank you for joining me at the cafe today.
00:45 So happy to have you here. Today we are wrapping up a series on the topic of seeking the Lord. Matter of fact, the topic really deals with the timeliness of seeking the Lord.
00:59 Hosea 10:12, so 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. And we’ve spent this last series of episodes talking about the idea that it is now time to seek the Lord in these last days when the Bible clearly shows that we are living in the end times, in the great falling away of the church where many churches have either closed or minimized, that’s for sure, when many people have stopped going to church, when many young people have stopped going to church.
01:38 I had my car repaired last week and the mechanic told me, he said, how’s your church going? I said, we’re doing okay. And he said, how’s the youth? I said, well, we just got a few people, so I don’t have too many youth, a couple of kind of college age, I’d say, a high schooler. And he said, he is the youth.
01:57 And he was at least 50, if not 60. And he goes, I am the youth in my church. And he went to a fairly large church there in the area.
02:06 And he said, there’s not a young person in there. And I don’t know if he was exaggerating or telling the truth, but I have to believe that he wasn’t even exaggerating. So there’s a great falling away.
02:15 Young people aren’t going to church. There are signs of the times, they’re great. There’s wars, rumors of wars, there’s pestilence.
02:22 There may not be full on famine, but there sure is inflation and signs of shortages everywhere. On and on and on. The sign of the times shows us the end is near.
02:36 Now is time to seek the Lord, as Hosea 10:12 tells us, that we need to sow to ourselves or plant those seeds of righteousness in ourselves and reap in mercy. We’re talking about ourselves here to break up our fallow ground. What is fallow ground? That’s ground that’s been left unplanted for a period of time.
02:56 It’s been left to rest to regenerate. Well, it’s inside of us. We all have that area where maybe we’re not spending time with God and that land, so to speak, is ready for planting, for sowing that seed of righteousness till he comes and rains righteousness upon us.
03:14 You know, that’s the idea, again, this agricultural reference that the Lord is going to bestow blessings upon us for seeking him. That even when it’s hard, oftentimes you plant a garden and you don’t see anything right away and it looks kind of scary. Maybe you seek the Lord and you don’t see anything right away and it looks kind of scary, but you keep seeking him and eventually his righteousness will rain upon you.
03:38 His mercy will be bestowed upon you. You’ll have a closeness with God that you didn’t have before. You’ll have a purpose you didn’t have before.
03:47 And so what are some ways that we can seek the Lord in these last days? And I’ve given a list of walking, you know, prayer walks, you know, walking with the Lord, setting up Bible studies in person or on Zoom, trading a bad app on your phone for a good one, getting away from social media, memorizing scripture, creating a routine of studying your Bible and prayer. And here’s some more here. And I don’t know that I’ll get to the whole list.
04:18 I don’t think I will, that I made and prayed over. But here’s some more ways to seek the Lord in these last days. How about build up God positive habits? You know, when you want to do something bad, say a bad word or sin, gossip, whatever it is, instead of doing that bad thing, praise Jesus.
04:38 Instead of falling into something like fear, go and pray and praise the Lord. You know, the Bible tells us we weren’t given the spirit of fear. And when we build up God positive habits, what we’re doing is we’re trading in the fleshly sinful nature for the things and ways of God.
04:55 Because the truth is, God gives us in his words so many positive habits to pray without ceasing, to cast all our cares upon him for he careth for us, to live holy, did not touch the unclean thing, to give God praise and everything and everything to give thanks. I mean, these are all positive godly habits. And as we embrace these habits and implement them in our day to day lives, we’ll be seeking God.
05:24 How about reading scripture, and then writing based on what you read? You know, if you have a journal, anyone can get a journal, you can go to Dollar Tree and get a journal, or you can be fancy, go a Christian bookstore and get a journal. And you can write poetry based on the scriptures. You can write poetry, you can write journal entries, whatever it is, that’s kind of stirring in your heart as you study scriptures.
05:49 Even if it is a frustration of something you may not understand of something you want to ask God, why not spend time on that scripture, and then write about it. If you love to write, you could even write a blog post or share something on social media if you haven’t gotten off because it did recommend previous episode to lay off of social media. But if you are on there, and you can’t give it up, one way would be to write about the Lord.
06:15 I know some people that are retired, and that’s their ministry, is they write about God and the things of God. And so that’s another way to seek God. Because think about it, how can you write about God if you’re not studying up on who he is? You know, that’s the one of the many, many blessings of being called to preach and being a servant of the Lord is that by virtue of my calling, I have to study His word and spend time with Him.
06:41 Right. And so I’m telling you something that I know is good, and healthy for us spiritually. So that’s another way to seek the Lord.
06:50 How about sing godly songs? You know, it’s so important to sing godly songs. And I listen to sometimes I’ll listen to bluegrass gospel and, and bluegrass music, and they’ll talk about singing on the front porch. And, you know, we live in North Carolina in a rural area where, you know, there’s nothing wrong with that.
07:08 Amen. That’s, that’s still that’s still acceptable out here. Even exciting.
07:14 And so whether you’re on the front porch or in a car and shower or wherever, sing godly songs, you know, if you find yourself singing often, then why not sing godly songs. And if you don’t know what to sing, there’s many hymns available online, or you have a hymn book and so forth. Maybe your church has hymn books that you can borrow or just take pictures of the different hymns with your phone and, and then go and reflect on that later and sing on it and think about what it means.
07:43 And I’ll tell you almost every Sunday morning that I preach, especially before I preach, we have a several songs, congregational songs and a special song, and they all seem to just go right along with the message. Often many times in the introduction, as I preach at our little church, that message, the hymn is included in the message, I’m telling you. So singing godly songs and focusing on godly songs will bring us closer to God to seek the Lord.
08:07 How about this? Play amateur detective. Review the places that are listed in the Bible. You know, I’m always fascinated about this aspect of the Bible.
08:22 I love this aspect of the Bible. You can read about the most obscure place, right? And it could be in Hebrew or whatever it is, and you know, it’ll say this name of a place, right? And you can stop and, now back in the day you’d have to go to the library or something, but today you can pick up your phone or computer and you can search up what, where that place is. And so often, I mean at the very least you’ll see a map, right? An ancient map, but oftentimes somebody went there and took pictures of it or maybe even made a video.
08:52 And so when you start reviewing the places in the Bible, the Lord will open your understanding to the fact that the Bible is 1,000% true and real. The fact that these are real places with real people. The fact that many historians do not dispute the Bible.
09:10 In fact, they use it as a reference. And then the fact that there’s something called extra biblical sources. Those that are not in the Bible that back up the Bible.
09:18 And you have all of these inputs feeding in to your knowledge and understanding when you review the places in the Bible, when you research them, when you become a detective and say, I want to know where Golgotha is. Okay, I want to know the Valley of Megiddo. I want to know what that looks like.
09:35 They say that’s a good battlefield. They say that’s where Armageddon is going to happen. That’s what the Bible’s telling me.
09:40 I want to know what that looks like. You know, I want to see this well, right? I want to know where Shechem is. I want to see Yosemite.
09:45 I want to see on and on and on. And it’s all there. Amen.
09:52 And every day people are just not every day, but often people are discovering a new archaeology that is leading to a better understanding of these places in the Bible. And so one way to seek the Lord is to review the places in the Bible by going on Google or YouTube. Sure, you go to library, there’s many DVDs as well.
10:14 But for people like me that, you know, really have no right now ability to travel on a plane, I’ve got young kids and all this other stuff to the Holy Land, no ability to do that right now. I still can go there and research. And it’s fun.
10:31 Again, it’s fun. And it puts it into pictures. And like I said, multimedia and seeing it.
10:42 And it’s incredible. I mean, you never thought you could stare at a, you know, pool of water or something, a picture of a well or a hill or a valley for 30 minutes, but you really can when you know the context, and you’re reading about it in the Bible. So review the places in the Bible.
10:55 It’s another way to seek the Lord. How about get involved in Sunday school, teaching Sunday school, if you teach, you have to learn. And so if you’re teaching, it’s another great way to seek the Lord.
11:05 Guess what? If you didn’t normally study the Bible on like a Saturday, and now you teach Sunday school, I promise you, you’ll be studying the Bible on Saturday. It’s a great way to seek the Lord by by getting involved and praying if the Lord would have you to be a teacher of some kind. Journal to God, we’ve kind of talked a little bit about that, but write out what you feel what you’re going through.
11:25 Apply the scriptures to the letter. If nobody else reads that journal, understand that God reads it. He sees all and knows all, and that’s a way to articulate your feelings and spend time with him as you look at the scriptures, and you look at maybe themes of scriptures about trust and truth and love and devotion and all these things that we see in the Bible.
11:47 How about write your testimony down and include scripture? Share it with the Lord, of course, and pray about sharing it with others. Have you ever written your testimony down? I mean really written down, and a testimony is what God has done for you, what change God has made in your life. And there are people out there that don’t really readily share their testimony, that have incredible testimonies, that have overcome magnificent things like addiction and abuse and poverty and all these things to be blessed by God.
12:22 Why not share that with somebody? You could win a soul to Christ by telling them, because they may not know the things of God, they may not know the Bible, but they know you. And so consider writing your testimony down and sharing it with others. Commit to becoming spiritually fit this summer, reading the Word no matter what, every day.
12:42 People go on a summer reading plan. I heard on Christian radio yesterday, there was one called On the Same Page, where everyone was going to read the New Testament this summer. Whether it’s that, whether it’s using an app or a program, or just simply saying, I’m gonna be spiritually fit this summer.
12:56 I’m going to commit every single day at X time to read the Bible, and pray and let the Lord lead you. Whatever it is, why not become spiritually fit? And the reason why I say the summer right now, it’s summertime, and people are thinking maybe about being physically active, why not be spiritually active and get the benefits there. Talk to other believers and listen to them for wisdom and guidance in growing close to God.
13:22 You know, that’s the way that we can grow close to God, is to fellowship with believers and understand that there’s great benefit in it, and learn from them. I don’t have all the answers, and there’s many people that have many ways that they spend time with God. Talk to other believers.
13:39 Show your pure intentions that you know it’s time to seek the Lord, that you know it’s time to regenerate that fallow ground, to plant, sow those seeds of righteousness, and to reap in mercy. And finally, pray, and then pray some more. Spend quiet time with God and pray.
13:55 These times will be the times that the Lord really leads you, and how He wants you to seek Him. Understand that seeking God is not something we just do on Sundays or Wednesday nights. Seeking God is something we should do every day, all day, even in our profession, our vocation, and He will bless us for it.
14:14 I thank you for listening. Take care, God bless, and amen.