Real Seeking ~ 2 Chronicles 15

“And he went out to meet king Asa and said to him, “hear me Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin, The Lord is with you while you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, he will forsake you.” 2 Chronicles 15:2

“but when, in their distress, they turned to Lord the God of Israel, and sought Him, He was found by them” 2 Chronicles 15:4

“for they had sworn with all their heart and had sought them with their whole desire, and He was found by them.” 2 Chronicles 15:15

              The world is full of seekers seeking something.  Some are seeking money; some are seeking fame.  Others are seeking happiness, purpose, direction, love, community, peace, or truth.  But among each of these seekers, one principle will alone determine whether their search will bear fruit or not.  Desire.  For example, I think all people are seeking money at some level.  Possibly some are seeking just enough for their next meal, others just enough for the next new gadget or shiny toy, but others are seeking it as the foundation for a personal empire.  And for those souls, they seek money with all that they are.  They will beg, borrow, steal, and crush whomever they must in their desperate and passionate seeking for more cash.  And it is here that we arrive at the crux for our study verses above.  What are you truly seeking today and with what percentage of your heart and soul are you seeking it?

              The two books of Chronicles echo the two books of Kings in telling the history of the Israelite empire under the rule of its 42 different kings.  And within that history we are allowed to ride the Biblical roller coaster as it takes us along the crazy hills, loops, and turns of good kings and bad kings.  And in the rarity of a good king, we are allowed a glimpse behind the curtain of what it truly means to be not just a good king, but a good follower of God.  You see, it is not important to God your station in this life, whether it be prince or pauper, but rather where your heart lies when it comes to acknowledging, worshipping, and walking in obedience to His Lordship.  As Solomon and his son Rehoboam manage to wreck the unified kingdom of Isreal, seeing it effectively split in two, we now find 10 tribes in the north, called Israel, and 2 tribes in the south, named Judah.  And concerning the kingdom of Judah in the south, we read here in 2 Chronicles chapter 15 of good king Asa and his reckless, passionate seeking of nothing else but the Lord God Almighty.

              The word seeker gets thrown around somewhat loosely today, especially in the church world.  We see churches that define themselves as “seeker friendly” as they include coffee bars, libraries, comfy seating, trendy bands, and state of the art audio and video systems on their campuses.  But the root word of seek goes much farther than the idea of trivial casual interest or paltry curiosity.  The root of the word seek in Latin is “sagire”, which means "to perceive keenly by scent."  Imagine here a fox hound on the hunt for its prey, the wily, crafty fox.  Have you ever seen such an event?  Those hounds carry DNA that exists for one primary purpose, to locate the scent of its prey, recklessly follow that scent, and then locate and kill a fox.  And as they do, the howling, the wailing, and their desperate pursuit is made beyond clear.  They will not stop until they find what they are seeking.  And folks, it is here, in this same vein, that the Lord desires us to seek Him, His Word, His ways, and His plan for our lives.

              Let’s revisit the question from the closing of paragraph one above…when you think about God today, with what percentage of your heart, soul, strength, and mind are you seeking Him?  Do you causally, at times, ponder His existence?  Do you occasionally visit church and scroll through social media while that guy on the stage rambles on about the Bible?  Do you even, every so often, crack open the Bible and read some of it to only quickly put it down and claim it as totally and hopelessly confusing?  You see, that is nowhere near the same level of seeking that those foxhounds hold and it is nowhere the same level of seeking that God is speaking of above.  For the true depths of seeking God is not in the act…but in the faithful expectant finding of Him.

              God promises you today, His created creature, that if you desperately seek Him with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30) that He will be easily found by your efforts.  You see, the world wants to tell us that God is some mystical hidden being that wants nothing to do with His creation, instead choosing to play some weird hide and go seek with the world He created.  But friends, God’s own Holy Words tells us something very different.  God so loves the world He created, and the sinful creatures that live within it, that He sent His only Son here in a body of flesh to see it tortured and put to death to pay the penalty that all sin carries.  And then God saw this event remain the most prominent in all of human history, seeing Jesus’ work upon the cross sit at the threshold of all human existence. But praise be to God, death has no hold on God and Jesus walked out of His own grave three days later having finished the work of defeating all sin for all time.  And because of this, you have the opportunity to seek eternal life through Jesus Christ today.

              But what you find depends on your level of seeking.  Casually googling ‘God and Jesus’ is not the level of seeking God is speaking of.  Thinking about God or even asking a Christian friend about heaven isn’t either.  Think more about a dying man crawling through the desert, desperate in his search for water, knowing that he will surely die unless it is found.  It is no longer about his interest in water, his foreknowledge of water, or his curiosity about water…his life or death depends on his seeking and finding water.  Friends, God is crystal clear in His Words to all creation, our sin separates us from Him for all of eternity.  To be united to Him in His home, heaven, we need to be saved from the penalty of our own sin.  And Jesus did just that.  But, and it’s a big but…if we reject Him and His salvation, He will let us.  God will not force hearts to love Him, for that is not true love at all.  Don’t miss this obvious fact in the last part of verse 15:2 above…”but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you.” For most, this sounds beyond harsh but ultimately, God gives us what we want from Him. God grants to the heart that seeks Him what it wants, a Lord, a Savior, and a Father. He also grants the heart that forsakes Him what it desires, a life with none of the prior.

I pray today that you will seek the Lord with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength and find eternal salvation that only comes through calling upon Jesus Christ as your personal Savior.  For if you seek Him…God promises that you will find Him.

Blessings to you ~ Dan

“You will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.”  Deuteronomy 4:29

“And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13

 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7

Juquila, Oaxaca, Mexico