Pursuing God

• We’ll just tell him what we need. But God God will not chase you down. Not as a believer. He will for sinners. And uh I think the [clears throat] scripture bears that out when it talks about that the shepherd will leave the 90 and nine and he will go look for the lost sheep. And even in the parable of the prodal son, uh [clears throat] the father didn’t go looking for him because the son left on his own and the son had to come back on his own even though the father was there waiting and looking for him.
• And so [clears throat] being in the presence of the lord is a unique thing and you have to pursue him. Uh I h I’ve noticed this over the years that you can have God’s blessings but not have his presence. And I think Christians sometimes confuse the blessing of God as the presence of God. And they’re different.
• And when you go back uh to the scriptures in Exodus 33, Moses is the Lord has told Moses, he said, “I am I’m angry with Israel.” He said, “Now they’re my children.” He said, “I’m going to I’m going to do what I said. I’m going to bring him into the land of Canaan.” But he said, “I’m not going with them.” He said, “I’ll send an angel before him, but I won’t go with them.
• ” And [clears throat] Moses, this is how he responded to the Lord. He said, “If your presence will not go with me, then don’t bring me into the land of Canaan.” Because Moses understood it wasn’t the land. It wasn’t the inheritance that would make Israel different or special. It was the presence of God that made Israel special.
• And Moses understood that that if God is not with us, then we’re like everybody else. [snorts] And so I want to talk to you about [clears throat] pursuing the Lord. I’m having some problems with my voice today, so forgive me. God doesn’t stay in the same place. We think, you know, well, we know where God’s at, but the Bible says the spirit moveth as it listeth.
• Then if you go to the Old Testament, God moves. He He’s there one day and then he’ll move on. I I I remember over the years being in services to where all of a sudden we’d have this divine move of the Lord and it might have started with a song that we sang or something that we did and people think, “Okay, well next next Sunday we’re gonna do the same thing.
• ” And you find out it doesn’t work because God has moved. And so uh [clears throat] when you have to pursue the Lord in the Old Testament, it said this about uh the presence of the Lord, it said that God told Moses. He said, “When the cloud moves, pack up. Don’t matter if you planted a garden.
• It didn’t matter if you’ve been here a year.” He said, “If you want to be with me, when I move, you got to move with me.” And so pursuing pursuing God is a unique thing. I think that God is like all of us. He wants to be wanted. And um the Bible says for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
• So first of all, I want to I want to put this in your spirit. God rewards people that seek him. You know, I’ve had people say, you know, I I tried to pray and I don’t feel God. But seeking something means that you you’ve got to be diligent to it. Some, you know, you lose something in your house, you just don’t go to one place, well, it’s not there, so I guess it’s lost.
• You keep looking in different places till you find it. It’s the same thing with pursuing God. You keep looking until you find him because the Lord is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. And so, uh, the Bible bears this out that God dwells in secret places. He who dwelleth in the secret place of the most high.
• And there’s a there’s a lot of scriptures that teach this that God dwells in secret places. God just you just don’t one moment say, “Okay, God, I need to be in your presence.” And it’s like that. It it is something that you have to qualify yourself for. And 1 Coronicles 28:9, it says, “If you will seek him, he will be found of thee.
• ” And when I read this, it tells me this that God is accessible. He He’s not hiding from us. It’s just that you got to find where he is. And so the Lord said if you seek him, you will be found of him and you’ll find him. But it’s uh even in prayer um there are times that that I’ll go to prayer and immediately soon as I start praying boy I could just feel the spirit of the Lord.