Mensa Otabil - Seeking the Lord
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Today we conclude our teaching on choices, and this is the seventh part. I want you to take time to go through what we’ve learned throughout the week. Listen to them over again and ponder through them because they are guidelines to help us make the right choices in our lives. We conclude with Colossians 3:1: «If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God.» We must set our hearts on the right things if we want to make good choices. That means our hearts must be in the right place. When we say your heart is in the right place, we are talking about your values. Your values drive your life; they drive what is important in your life and what you are ready to spend on, what you spend your time on, what you spend your energy on, and what you spend your talent to acquire. All of these things are determined by your values because they determine what is weighty and important to you.
For us to have the right values, we must center our hearts where Christ is. As Christians, we must learn to align our beliefs and desires with those of Christ Jesus so that what is on His heart is also on our hearts. That is a way to have the right value system and to help you in your pursuits, so that the things you pursue will be those that bring glory and honor to Him. Most of the time, we think that Christianity is only about prayer, Bible study, giving, sharing our faith, and being good. These are all positive things we should be doing, but Christianity goes a little beyond that. It is a daily yearning for God because if we do all the things—pray, study the Bible, give—but have no heart for God, we don’t desire Him or want to be in His presence and don’t want to have His values. Then all our Christian activities will lack depth; they will lack the values that must keep them or the godliness that must sustain them.
The believer’s spirit can be satisfied in the presence of God. A believer can be happy with his life and still have a great desire for God, and that is where God wants us to be. He wants us to have a heart for Him, a heart that pants for Him, a heart that desires Him, a heart that seeks His will. As we do that, and as our hearts are aligned well with Him, then the things we consider important are also aligned with Him, so that the choices we make are also aligned with Him. If your heart is in the wrong place, the things you consider important will be very different from what God wants. You will always be pursuing the wrong things, always making the wrong choices, and never doing the right thing.
So we set our hearts on Him by desiring Him. We must have a hunger for the Lord, a desire for the Lord, so seek first the Lord. However, when we say we must pursue the Lord, it doesn’t mean that we must have no dreams and no desires and that all we do is seek God with nothing else we are pursuing. No, that’s not what it is. We have desires, we have vision, we have goals, but in seeking God, we subject all of these to the Lord. We bring them under His feet and allow Him to influence all the desires of our hearts. Without that, we can have great desires, but they will be very ungodly desires. We can have great goals, but they would take us totally out of the will of God. The great things we want to do must always be brought to the feet of Jesus, and that happens when our hearts are set on Him.
So seek the Lord, desire Him, hunger after Him, and thirst after Him. If you do that, I can tell you without any shadow of a doubt that your choices will always align with the heart of the Lord, and He will help you pursue and fulfill them. However, if your heart is not where God is, then He will resist you because your choices do not bring glory to His name. That’s how I conclude our teaching on choices; it all ends in Jesus and doing His will. Let us pray. Say with me: «Heavenly Father, I want to know You and stay close to You. Help me to draw near to You with all my being. In Jesus' name, Amen.» Well, it has been a good journey, my friends, learning about how to make choices and ending right with the Lord Jesus Christ. I’ll start teaching something new tomorrow. I’m Pastor Mensa Otabil. Shalom, peace, and life to you.