Searching God

An Emoji Devotional for Thu, June 10 2021

Topic: Searching God

By H.U Wenger

Highlights: I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. (Psalm 119:10)

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. (Deuteronomy 6:5) This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. (Leviticus 19:18) All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. (Matthew 22:37 – 40)
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. (Compare John 14:15 – 21)

Nobody begins to search something without the knowledge or perception of having something lost. When God created man, he made them little lower than himself (Psalm 8) and he clothed them with his own glory, which gave them the destiny to live forever in his presence. Deplorably man sinned knowingly (Eve was deceived, Adam was not) and the glory of God, their being born of God, fell away from them and they found themselves naked and ashamed. They died out of the spiritual oneness with the Holy Trinity. Ecclesiastes 3:11 reminds us of the one thing that remained in the human heart: “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” The whole book of Ecclesiastes talks about the human awareness of the lost paradise. The key back to that land is to be born of God and that premonition makes us to search for our creator. Jesus himself encourages every human effort to approach God: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7 – 8)

Often times we are frustrated with God, because he did not react as we would have liked and we forget, that he is absolutely and totally good for us in all he does. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) There is no other way to show our love for God than to be obedient to his word and to show love, mercy and compassion to our fellow human beings.

By living in our fallen estate, the Bible calls it living in the flesh, we will always fail in keeping God’s commands. We need Jesus as our Savior and the Holy Spirit as our strength and our guide. “For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” If you do not know Jesus yet as your Lord and Savior, you may turn to him right now. Confess to him that you are a sinner and repent from all of your sins. Invite Jesus into your heart and give him the right to be the master and king of your life. In accepting him as your Lord and believing in him, you will be born again and what was lost in paradise comes back to you by faith and will come back to you by sight, when Christ himself will be revealed to the whole world as the king of kings and the Lord of all Lords.

Prayer: Hear my voice when I call, Lord; be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek. Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, God my Savior. Amen (Psalm 27:7 – 9)