A portion of Scripture came to me during the night as I was sleeping. I woke up (partially) about four in the morning and could not go back to sleep. The Word that came to me was Jeremiah 29:13: And you shall seek Me, and find Me, when you shall search for Me with all your heart. As I thought upon this Word, I was aware of how difficult it would be to seek the Lord that totally. I wanted to seek Him that way because I desperately wanted to find Him in ways I did not yet know Him. I do not think it is possible for anyone to seek the Lord with all the heart in oneself. We do not have that ability in us.
Jeremiah 17:9 says: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? That is true! The heart can be very deceptive. It can make you feel you are total in your love when you are not. Anyway, I knew that my heart wasn't as total in seeking God as I wanted it to be. I also knew I did not have the ability to make it do so. Lord, You have to help me! You have to create that kind of heart in me!
As soon as I got in my office I looked up Jeremiah 29:13 in my Bible and read a few more verses with it. Verses 11-14 gave me an answer that helps. It shows four steps to the desired goal. If you have had the same problem, maybe it will help you, too.
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
The first step: This verse should really bless you. His thoughts toward us are not evil. He is not thinking bad things about us. He is not waiting for us to sin so He can punish us. In my years of ministry I have had many to tell me that their main reason for becoming a Christian was so they would not go to hell. They think of God as being a God of wrath that is ready to punish whenever it is needed. He is not that way. His thoughts toward us are thoughts of peace. He loves us and wants to bless us. Do you realize that what we think of God determines to a great extent how He relates to us? We can cut off His blessings to us by thinking He is angry and wants to punish us. Believe in His love for you! Believe that His thoughts about you are of peace!
His thoughts about us are to give us an "expected end." What is our expected end? Our hope or expected end is what we talked about earlier. We want to be able to seek the Lord with all our heart; we want it to be a reality, a real experience, not I think I do but I really do! If that is what we want, then that is His thoughts about us. He wants to give us our expected end. Alright! God plans to help us love Him so much that we will seek Him with our whole heart.
Jeremiah 29:12 Then shall you call upon Me, and you shall go and pray to Me, and I will hearken to you.
The second step: Once you know what He thinks about you, that He wants to help you to your expected end, then you can set about to do it, knowing that He is with you. Now you can call upon Him with a faith you did not have before. You shall go; that is, you shall begin seeking Him with renewed faith. Already you can feel your love for Him growing. You are on the move toward your expected end.
Jeremiah 29:13 And you shall seek Me, and find Me, when you shall search for Me with all your heart.
The third step: Now you are finding Him, not in fullness, but you are finding Him in ways you have not known Him before. Beware of thinking in terms of absolutes. It is not a matter of this or that. If it were possible for you to be filled with all the fullness of God, He would expand and there would be more of Him to receive. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end. Isaiah 9:7.
As the hunger for Him in your heart grows, you find Him in new ways. Then you find Him in other ways. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little. Isaiah 28:10. You never want to get to the place where you have Him in total fullness. You may ask, what about Matthew 5:6? Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled. That is true, but that is not the finality of it. Whatever your capacity for God is can be filled, but your capacity for Him grows, too. So you can be filled over and over. Seek Him with all your heart. There is an amazing quality about the heart. The more it seeks and loves the more it is able. There is a continual increase in the ability of the heart to seek God and to love Him.
Jeremiah 29:14 And I will be found of you, saith the Lord: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations.
The fourth step: It is the things of the world that have hindered us from seeking the Lord with all our heart. Worldly things have had our hearts in captivity. The nations are the things of our flesh: the nation of adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like (Galatians 5:19-21). When we really begin seeking the Lord with all our heart we will find Him, and He will gather us out of the nations of our flesh nature. I'm not completely dense. I know why this Scripture came to me during the night. It was the Lord speaking to Me, "Henry, you need to start seeking Me with all your heart." Is He speaking this to you, too?
Copyright © 2012 by Henry DuBose