JER 29:13 ESV
You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
PERSONAL COMMENTARY
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We all should know the difference between loving someone and liking someone.
If we love someone, we want to spend time with them, we want to get to know them, and we want to grow closer to them in a personal relationship. We want to see them or talk to them everyday and to share time together.
If we just like someone, we will see them occasionally when we get together with friends. We might hang out around them once a week when the crew gets together at the local hangout, and even then, our focus is only partly on spending time with them, because we have so many other friends around us.
The same is true with God. If we aren’t seeking time with Him, how can we say that we love Him – when our actions prove that we are more comfortable just liking Him?
Let me put it in another perspective – if the queen of a rich nation of the world made it known to me that she loved me and wanted me to come join her in marriage, wouldn’t I at least be intrigued and want to find out more about her, even if I didn’t yet know her well enough to love her? Or would I immediately dismiss her as some Nigerian scam trying to trick me into sending her money because my heart is hardened against the possibility that it could be true?
It is the same with God.
He came into this world as Jesus Christ, fully man, fully God. He did not come into the world to condemn us, but to save us. Because a price had to be paid, a sacrifice had to be made, a demonstration of His nature had to be performed so that we could understand and appreciate and accept those things of God that are His true nature and being.
Up to that point, man did not have a full revelation of God’s nature and being. Many men had seen the evidence of God in things on this earth and had tried to explain and worship this presence that they knew existed that surpassed themselves. But man’s perspective is limited to his own knowledge and emotions, so a lot of the opinion as to God’s nature was understood by man as wrath, judgement, and law by religions throughout time. They mistakenly saw God as operating in similar ways to men – bartering and trading good for good, bad for bad.
But God doesn’t need anything from us. He is the Almighty creator of all things in heaven and earth. He doesn’t need anything FROM you. But He does want something FOR you. So He offers this gift, almost like we would understand an engagement offering from a great ruler. And He does this because He loves us.
The question is do we love Him back?
Or do we just sort of like Him?
Or do we ignore Him thinking that it is preposterous that God could love me?
No matter how we have treated Him in the past, He is still faithful today, so you can call on the name of Jesus Christ, you can seek Him, and you will receive His gift of love for your life.
I encourage you to seek Him, and find Him, and love Him. Because there will come a day and a time that it is too late, and you will have missed out on this great opportunity.
If your heart is hardened and you can’t see truth in the things that I say, please just try paying to Jesus Christ and asking Him to soften your heart to know His love, to open your eyes to see His Truth, to open your ears to hear the Word of God, and to strengthen you to walk in a new life. This is the greatest healing of all, friend. It is a greater healing even than outward signs of God’s glory and power. So accept this offer of healing in your life, this healing that begins on the inside, and then touches ever part of your renewed life with healing that spreads outward into every area of your life, and even into the lives of those around you.
Be healed today, friend.
Be renewed in Christ.
If you know Christ already, are you in love with Him today? Or do you just like Him? I encourage you to spend time seeking Him today and every day. When you diligently seek Him with purpose and conviction, you will find Him. If you don’t have purpose and conviction, pay and ask Him for it. Ask to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide you, and ask that it be alive and stirred and active in guiding and teaching you. And once the fire is burning, keep tossing logs on the fire in prayer, time in the Word, time spent applying the Word in your life, time spent serving and loving others, time spent in fellowship with other believers, time spent praising God, and time spent spreading this Good News of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
If that sounds like a lot of time spent with Good, YES IT IS! Isn’t that amazing how many ways He offers us to love Him in return? Because if we are seeking God, isn’t that what we are looking for, more time with Him, the one that we love?
Spend time with Him, and find Him faithful and trustworthy in His promises.
I love you, friend. Have a blessed day.
Harold J. Ballinger 