Seek Him Dearly and Daily ( by C.H. Spurgeon)

Seek Him Dearly and Daily

“I sought him, but I found him not.” Song of Solomon 3:1

Tell me where you lost the company of Christ, and I will tell you the most likely place to find him. Have you lost Christ in the closet by restraining prayer? Then it is there you must seek and find him. Did you lose Christ by sin? You will find Christ in no other way but by the giving up of the sin, and seeking by the Holy Spirit to mortify the member in which the lust doth dwell. Did you lose Christ by neglecting the Scriptures? You must find Christ in the Scriptures. It is a true proverb, “Look for a thing where you dropped it, it is there.” So look for Christ where you lost him, for he has not gone away. But it is hard work to go back for Christ. Bunyan tells us, the pilgrim found the piece of the road back to the Arbour of Ease, where he lost his roll, the hardest he had ever travelled. Twenty miles onward is easier than to go one mile back for the lost evidence.

Take care, then, when you find your Master, to cling close to him. But how is it you have lost him? One would have thought you would never have parted with such a precious friend, whose presence is so sweet, whose words are so comforting, and whose company is so dear to you! How is it that you did not watch him every moment for fear of losing sight of him? Yet, since you have let him go, what a mercy that you are seeking him, even though you mournfully groan, “O that I knew where I might find him!” Go on seeking, for it is dangerous to be without thy Lord. Without Christ you are like a sheep without its shepherd; like a tree without water at its roots; like a sere leaf in the tempest–not bound to the tree of life. With thine whole heart seek him, and he will be found of thee: only give thyself thoroughly up to the search, and verily, thou shalt yet discover him to thy joy and gladness.

Intimacy is Gold

Relationship with God

Cherished above all things

Surpassing everything.

Let it be your delight

And you will have His light

Let it be your first love

And you will be above.

New Birth is the first rung

Of a ladder that’s long.

You must desire to grow;

Increase, rise, soar and glow.

Like Enoch walked with God

You too must walk with God

Walk worthy of His call

Walk consistently like Paul.

Desire to know Him more

And He’ll open the door

To treasury you know not yet

And you’ll zoom like jet.

Let it be your one desire,

Then you’ll rise out of mire,

Into the place for you;

Specially meant for you.

Cry, ”That I may know Him!”

Yell, ”That I may love Him!”

More than all else I know.

May we together flow

Hand in hand like lovers

Communing under cover

Meeting long before dawn

Much long before the sun.

Intimacy with God is gold

Go for it and be bold.

Grow in it day by day.

Be this, O Lord, I pray!

w in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.Mark1:35

¹As the ³⁵Nodeer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God.

²My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?Ps42:1-2

⁴One thing I have desired of the LORD, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD, And to inquire in His temple.

⁵For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; In the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock.Ps27:4-5

Intimacy Comes With Communion

Intimacy Comes with Communion

Matthew 11:25

C.H. Spurgeon

At that time Jesus answered.

This is a singular way in which to commence a verse-“At that time Jesus answered.” If you will look at the context you will not perceive that any person had asked Him a question, or that He was in conversation with any human being. Yet it is written, “Jesus answered and said, I thank Thee, O Father.” When a man answers, he answers a person who has been speaking to him. Who, then, had spoken to Christ? His Father. Yet there is no record of it; and this should teach us that Jesus had constant fellowship with His Father, and that God spake into His heart so often, so continually, that it was not a circumstance singular enough to be recorded. It was the habit and life of Jesus to talk with God.

Even as Jesus was, is this world, so are we; let us therefore learn the lesson which this simple statement concerning Him teaches us. May we likewise have silent fellowship with the Father, so that often we may answer Him, and though the world wotteth not to whom we speak, may we be responding to that secret voice unheard of any other ear, which our own ear, opened by the Spirit of God, recognizes with joy. God has spoken to us, let us speak to God-either to set our seal that God is true and faithful to His promise, or to confess the sin of which the Spirit of God has convinced us, or to acknowledge the mercy which God’s providence has given, or to express assent to the great truths which God the Holy Ghost has opened to our understanding.

What a privilege is intimate communion with the Father of our spirits! It is a secret hidden from the world, a joy with which even the nearest friend intermeddleth not. If we would hear the whispers of God’s love, our ear must be purged and fitted to listen to His voice. This very evening may our hearts be in such a state, that when God speaks to us, we, like Jesus, may be prepared at once to answer Him.

The Wise Spend Time With God

The Wise Spend Time With God by Rick Warren

It is the Lord who gives wisdom; from him come knowledge and understanding. Proverbs 2:6 (TEV)

You say, “I want to trust God, but I don’t hear him.” To hear God, you have to get near God. You don’t hear God when your mind is filled with a thousand other distractions. You’ve got to get alone with God and be quiet.

The Bible says, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10 NIV). That means sit down and shut up. That’s how you hear God and get near to God. You have to sit alone and just be quiet with your Bible and say, “God, is there anything you want to say to me?” You read God’s Word, and you talk to him about what’s on your heart.

Pray this today: “God, I want to listen to you, not the voices of doubt. I want to hear you, and I promise to then obey you. I want to be one of the people that you can use and bless in the next 10 years. I want those years to be a decade of destiny for me and my family.”

Talk About It –

What do you need to change about the way you meet with the Lord so that you can be quiet and draw near to him?

Do you regularly hear from God? How do you normally react to his voice and what he tells you to do?

Rick Warren is the founding pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., one of America’s largest and most influential churches. Rick is author of the New York Times bestseller “The Purpose Driven Life.” His book, “The Purpose Driven Church,” was named one of the 100 Christian books that changed the 20th century. He is also the founder of Pastors.com, a global Internet community for pastors.

He knew You before You became You

Evening by Evening Devotional for January 4

Charles H. Spurgeon

“And Joseph knew his brethren, but they knew not him.”

Genesis 42:8

This morning our desires went forth for growth in our acquaintance with the Lord Jesus; it may be well to-night to consider a kindred topic, namely, our heavenly Joseph’s knowledge of us. This was most blessedly perfect long before we had the slightest knowledge of him.“His eyes beheld our substance, yet being imperfect, and in his book all our members were written, when as yet there was none of them.”Before we had a being in the world we had a being in his heart.When we were enemies to him, he knew us, our misery, our madness, and our wickedness. When we wept bitterly in despairing repentance, and viewed him only as a judge and a ruler, he viewed us as his brethren well beloved, and his bowels yearned towards us. He never mistook his chosen, but always beheld them as objects of his infinite affection.“The Lord knoweth them that are his,” is as true of the prodigals who are feeding swine as of the children who sit at the table.

But, alas! we knew not our royal Brother, and out of this ignorance grew a host of sins. We withheld our hearts from him, and allowed him no entrance to our love. We mistrusted him, and gave no credit to his words. We rebelled against him, and paid him no loving homage. The Sun of Righteousness shone forth, and we could not see him. Heaven came down to earth, and earth perceived it not.

Let God be praised, those days are over with us; yet even now it is but little that we know of Jesus compared with what he knows of us.We have but begun to study him, but he knoweth us altogether. It is a blessed circumstance that the ignorance is not on his side, for then it would be a hopeless case for us. He will not say to us, “I never knew you,” but he will confess our names in the day of his appearing, and meanwhile will manifest himself to us as he doth not unto the world.

Walking Well With God

Walking well with God

Requires talking to God

Talking with God

Cherishing His word

Even above your food.

Walking well with God

Requires finding your purpose

Facing that purpose

With zeal and passion

Until you finish and finish well.

Walking well with God

Entails walking well

Even with your fellow men

By serving them

To serve your God.

Walking well with God

Requires self-sacrifice

And loads of humility

and shedding any weight

or sin that easily besets.

Walking well with God

Includes loving the brethren

Fellowshipping with them

Upholding one another

Since we need each other.

Walking well with God means coming to know Him in His own terms

⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,

⁹not of works, lest anyone should boast. Eph2:8-9

⁹that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

¹⁰For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Rom10:9-10

Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John3:3

Walking well with God means having a short account with God.

⁸If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

⁹If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

¹⁰If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

1John1:

Walking well with God means hating sin with a passion

¹Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

²looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

³For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls.

Walking well with God means looking forward to His appearing

²Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

³And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. 1Jon3:2-3

⁸Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing. 2Tim.4:8

¹⁴I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. John17:14

¹⁵Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

¹⁶For all that is in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life — is not of the Father but is of the world.

1John2:15-16

²And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Rom12:2

Walking well with Him means growing in grace and being fruitful.

1Pet2:2

²as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby,

¹⁸but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen 2 Pet3:18

⁵But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge,

⁶to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness,

⁷to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.

⁸For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.2Pet.1:5-6

⁸By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.

John15:8

Walking well with God means living a disciplined life

⁴**No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.**

2Tim2:4

²⁴Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.

²⁵And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown.

²⁶Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air.

²⁷But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

1Cor9:24-27

Walking well with God means fighting the good fight of faith with courage.

Eph6:10-18

Walking well with Him means being filled and empowered by His Spirit.

²he said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” So they said to him, “We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.”

Acts19:2

³⁸how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

Acts10:38

¹⁸And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, Eph5:18

Walking with God requires whole-hearted obedience

¹⁹ If you are willing and obedient, You shall eat the good of the land;Isa1:19

Walking Well with God Requires unqualified faith: reliance and trust absolute dependence

³⁸Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, *My soul has no pleasure in him.”Heb10:38***

Hebrews 11

⁶ But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

³For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”Rom4:3

¹⁷(as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed — God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;

¹⁸who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, “So shall your descendants be.”

¹⁹And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.

²⁰He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God,

²¹and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.

²²And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.”

²²After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters.Gen5:22

⁵By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God.Heb11:5

16¹⁶I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

¹⁷For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.

²⁵If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.Gal5:

Walking well with God means self-sacrifice

¹**I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.**

²And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Walking well with God means walking in Love

¹⁵Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.1John2:15

⁵Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Rom5:5

And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.Eph5:1-2

Eph5:2

⁴Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;

⁵does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;

⁶does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;

⁷bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.

1Cor13:4-8

Walking well with God requires imitating Him

¹Therefore be imitators of God as dear children.

²And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.Eph5:1-2

Walking well with God requires renewing your mind.

¹I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

²And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Walking well with God means constant communication with Him

¹⁷pray without ceasing,1Thess5:17

⁶Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;

⁷and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Phil4:6-7

Walking well with God means loving His word more than your daily bread

Job 23

¹² I have not departed from the commandment of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth More than my necessary food.

Colossians 3

¹⁶ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

¹⁴Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord:

¹⁵looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled;

Heb12

²⁵**not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. Heb10:25**

Walking well with God requires finding, facing and finishing your purpose.

¹⁸” The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me *To preach the gospel to*** the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed;

¹⁹*To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD***.”

Luke4:18

¹⁶But rise and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you.

¹⁷I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you,

¹⁸to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.’

¹⁹“Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, Acts 26: 16-19

⁴⁹And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”

Luke2:49

John19:30

⁶For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand.

⁷I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

⁸Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.

Walking well with God means persevering in trials

⁸We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;

⁹persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed —

2Cor4:8-9

²³Are they ministers of Christ? — I speak as a fool — I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often.

²⁴From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one.

²⁵Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep;

²⁶in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;

²⁷in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness —

²⁸besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.

2Cor11:23-28

⁸Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me.

⁹And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

¹⁰Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

2Cor8-10

Walking well with God requires periodic intensive waiting on God.

Moses did, Jesus did, the disciples did, Esther did, Nehemiah did, Jehoshaphat did you too should.

¹Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

²And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry.

³Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”

⁴But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ “

Matt4:1-4

¹⁴Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region.

Luke4:14

³¹ But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.

Isa40:31

⁴So it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.

Neh1:4

³And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the LORD, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.

⁴So Judah gathered together to ask help from the LORD; and from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the LORD.

2Chro20:3-4

¹⁶“Go, gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me; neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast likewise. And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!”

Esther4:16

Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.

²As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

Acts13:1-2

http://christian-talk.forumotion.com/t5576-fresh-and-flourishing#10883

https://inspiration4generations.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/journey-of-jesus/