“Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will hear you. You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart.” – Jeremiah 29:12-13

WE ONLY KNOW how much we are prepared to know and we will only read what rouses our interests and curiosity. It is ironic how so many Christians are other than familiar with God’s Word and lack the desire and drive to study it; the thought of consulting extra biblical aids to further enrich their bible reading is an immediate ‘turn-off’, yet they are enthused to devour the latest gossip news articles that demand the same length of time to read. The truth is, God will not read our Bibles for us; we have to discipline ourselves to do it. Oftentimes, in our sentimental, emotional moments, we are ‘fired up’ to commit ourselves to reading it, only to find such promises short lived; we can have all the ecstatic moments until we feel ‘above the clouds’ but that will not make the slightest bit of difference until we get down to it – and stick to it.

Daily studying and meditating on God’s Word is essential for spiritual sensitivity; days and weeks without frequent reading will soon dull our senses to react accordingly and appropriately in the world in which we live. Bible reading is part of seeking the mind of God, but it is not an end in itself. I agree wholeheartedly with Tozer and I quote his entire paragraph so as to avoid misunderstanding: “When we sing, ‘Beyond the sacred page, I seek Thee, Lord,’ we do not mean that we are seeking contrary to or apart from the Word of God. The sacred page is not to be a substitute for God, although it has been made that by millions of people. The sacred page is not meant to be the end, but only the means toward the end, which is knowing God Himself.”  There are millions of souls in hell who ‘loved’ and worshipped their Bibles, but who failed to discern and embrace the God Who spoke the Word.

There is the danger of acquiring and satisfying ourselves with an intellectual pursuit of theology; we may have ‘pinned’ it down, so much so that we have an answer for every doctrinal ambiguity and dilemma and gain the ‘upper hand’ through a clever display of words, but that is not the hallmark of close acquaintance with God; that’s only knowing about Him.

After all is said and done, we will not have fellowship with God unless we seek Him and we shall not find Him until our hearts long for Him, despite having all our theological ‘T’s crossed and our theological ‘i’s dotted about grace and justification by faith alone. It is true for each one of us, from the beginning to the very end of our Christian pilgrimage, that we will always stand by grace, but the fact remains that while we intellectually increase in biblical doctrine, our hearts will only harden if we fail to know the God behind those truths; if we will not diligently seek God with all our hearts, to pursue Him above all other loves, we shall fall short of knowing Him.

“The Lord rewards those who seek Him.” The writer to the Hebrews was addressing believers to continue seeking Him. I stand all the way with Tozer when He said, “You can know God as much as you want to.” Many theologians would dispute that, but it is such people who, in twenty years time, would not have grown in grace and in the knowledge (experiential – not just the intellect!!) of our Lord Jesus Christ; they would remain in a state of stagnancy, content to only increase in all their doctrinal-isms. “The heart that is evermore crying after the One it loves is better than the heart that has settled down to the little it already knows!” – Tozer. Mere bible reading alone will not satisfy the true seeker until they find God behind those words. Of course, God has revealed Himself to us through His Word, but without the life of God in us, it is just a mere textbook! If that isn’t the case, then everyone who has ever picked up a Bible and read it is regenerate – and we know how ridiculous that sounds. The Pharisees fell into the trap of searching the Scriptures because they thought that in them they had eternal life, yet they refused to come to Jesus Christ that they may have life (John 5:39-40). How many fall into this trap today. I have personally known so many of them. They have great brains and some who have great minds to even teach doctrine. Oh! they sound so eloquent and they are absolutely spot-on in what they say – you couldn’t dispute it, but there is something vital missing; there is no life; there is rather something fake and shallow about them; they are just not real and I cannot think of anything worse that is such a turn off from Christianity.

Why on earth do you think the Apostle prayed that the believers at Ephesus may be given a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, having the eyes of their hearts enlightened that they may know Him (Ephesians 1:17-19)? And then again in chapter 3, he prays for the believers to be given strength to comprehend, to Know God and be filled with all His fullness. Didn’t they receive all this at the start? Should they have continued seeking God all the more? I remember hearing Lloyd-Jones challenging many reformed Christians at a particular meeting who were adamant they had received all from God the moment they were regenerate, “Got it all have you?” he asked, “Got it all? Then in God’s name, where is it?!”

Paul said in Philippians chapter three, “…That I may know Him…” which ought to be the most humbling and mind-sobering aspect for today’s ‘great’ professors of divinity. Paul, who experienced those incredible and unutterable revelations, yearned to know Jesus Christ more and more and if anyone should be labelled the greatest theologian, there would be no dispute about this apostle! Theology is the outskirts of knowledge about God – man’s attempt at interpreting God! Drawing near to God with a heart so thirsty for Him will expound truths deeper than our minds can grasp and our mouths can ever articulate. Do you believe for one moment that the author of Revelation described exactly what he saw? Of course not! We live accustomed to a three dimensional world and according to some scientists, there are supposedly sixteen additional dimensions, if not more; could our minds bend to comprehend the greatest?! Then, how on earth can anyone behold the One Who created those dimensions and then lucidly describe exactly what they saw?! “When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though dead.” Words failed for John to adequately describe the great Reality before him, but he was within safe boundaries to use words such as ‘like’: “His eyes were like a flame of fire…His voice was like the roar of many waters…His face was like the sun shining in full strength.”

Oh! We have lost the awe of God in our midst today because we don’t know Him! The only way we are going to get that back is by seeking His face alone; it will never come by mere studying – never! We can argue until we’re blue in the face, but until we realize there is no other way to knowing God except by yearning for none but Him and by persevering in our unrelenting pursuit of God until we find Him, then we are going to remain the most mediocre, lifeless, spiritual frauds there are. “…when you seek Me with all your heart” – it is then, and only then, that we shall find God. No-one else will do our seeking for us. We can attend as many conferences and revival meetings and repeatedly go through the same old process of being ‘fired-up’ for years on end, but nothing is going to change until we get down and stick to seeking God until He is found. A generation has never been richly educated in Christian doctrine as we have and yet, we are the most laziest age of Christians! Our greatest preachers and leaders of the church learned the secret of knowing God and that wasn’t mastered over night. We get bored too easily and give up after two weeks when we see no desired results, but those past tenacious leaders refused to give up until they met with God.

Enough of disputing about free will (where man’s responsibility comes into it) and the sovereignty of God – that’s ‘armchair-theology’ and the devil’s hosted it for too long! We’ve twiddled our thumbs over this until it’s come out of our ears; it’s hardly gotten us anywhere and we certainly don’t know God any better for it! God used both John Wesley and George Whitefield to incredible measures; one was Arminian, the other a Calvinist. Today’s commentators and biographers still scratch their heads over the enigma of it all. Wouldn’t it be great if they, and theologians alike, could simply ‘get over it’ and get serious with God – not about God. Times are fast approaching us where head knowledge alone will utterly fail us, “…but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.”

This generation doesn’t need men and women who know about the acts of God; it is desperately in need of people who know the ways of God through personal acquaintance with Him and that comes only to those who hunger and thirst after Him and who will persistently seek Him until they find Him.