Seek My Face

"My heart says of you, 'Seek his face!' Your face, Lord, I will seek."  Psalm 27:8


We hunger and search to be satisfied because that is how He made us to be.  It is for His glory to conceal, it is for our glory to seek Him out.
But the best part is
that when we seek...
He PROMISES to be found!!!

Discovering Righteousness

Righteousness is all over the Bible, from beginning to end, so it must be important.  In the Old Testament it describes God and the few who took what God said seriously.  In the New Testament we are told to pursue it...over and over and over.  But what exactly does that mean and how do we do it?

Righteousness simply put means, "adhering to moral principles" and that is simply put.
God wants us to be like him but he knows that we can't so he fixed the problem when Jesus died for us on the cross.
Now the bridge is built and we have full access to God and the things of God, including his characteristics.
When we don't know God we don't want the things of him, usually.  Then there's a part of people who are intrigued by God and wonder why Christians seem like they follow a lot of rules.
The rules thing always left a sour taste in my mouth.
I didn't want a religion of rules.
But then I got to know who Jesus was and I fell in love with him.
Then his spirit (which is alive) came into me and changed me.
Now my mind thinks differently
and my motives are different
and my desires are different.
When you fall in love, you want to be pleasing to that person and show how much you love them.
If they say don't make out with other people, you don't.
When you see how much they love you and they care about you and they warn you what will happen if you do what you're thinking about doing, you have the upper hand to make a good decision BUT the decision is still yours.
God and Jesus (one and the same) tell us to be righteous.
He tells us what is pleasing to him and what isn't.
I am in love so I want to please him.
When I decide that on my own free will then the spirit gets involved and empowers me to make righteous choices.
Righteousness is not rooted in rules, it is rooted in love and freedom.
Righteousness always leads to blessing.
God wants us to be righteous and provides a way for us to be righteous because he knows what is best for us AND he wants to reveal himself to the world through us.
It's easy to tell the difference between a righteous person and an unrighteous person.
So keep your appetite up for righteousness.

"Flee from evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart."
2 Timothy 2:22


"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well (everyday material needs)."
Matthew 6:33

Blessed Are The Hungry

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled"
Matthew 5:6

This is taken from the middle of what we call the "Beatitudes"
The Beatitudes were part of a speech that Jesus gave from a mountainside to his disciples and crowds of people.

Everywhere Jesus went people followed him,
     hundreds of people,
                                             thousands of people.
It wasn't because he was handsome and it wasn't just because of his miracles, there was probably something so charismatic and radiant about him...
Every word he said had purpose,
 every teaching had relevance and was contrary to what the world and the religious leaders at that time had been teaching.
People wanted to hear this guy!
and not just like,
"hey let's go to a conference and hear a guy speak"
No
It was so good people followed him from town to town, they left their lives to learn more, they were hungry for his words and by following him, they were blessed.  He fed them and healed them, he was kind and gentle towards them.  Think of all the people who had contact with him that we never will hear about because it wasn't recorded.  Were their lives ever the same?  I'm guessing that they weren't.  I say that because in my experience when I read the words Jesus spoke and understand them, I'm never the same.

Are you hungry?
 Are you blessed?
 Maybe you're one and not the other?
Be hungry for righteousness.
 Righteousness is a way of living that is inspired by the words of Jesus.
Once you begin seeing righteousness in your life you'll begin to see the blessings of Jesus there too.

Hungry? Why Wait?

"When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, O Lord God Almighty."  
Jeremiah 15:16


For 21 years I lived unsatisfied with life, who I was, and God.  I read the Bible a little bit because I was told to but I didn't really care about it because I didn't really care about the author.  Once I got to the end of myself and my boredom I realized something had to change; I knew I was meant for more and didn't want to waste any more time.  I knew that God was probably the only one who could tell me why I was here, on earth, at this time in history. I wasn't living as much as I thought I was, I was making bad decisions and by grace surviving all of them.   


I started snacking a little bit on scripture, then it became an inconsistent breakfast, and so on and so on until I wanted to learn more about the history of kings and prophets, the miracles that Jesus did and who He was, how people's (who knew Jesus personally) lives changed and how my life should look like since I was beginning to know Jesus.  I wanted to know what to expect for the future and wisdom to apply in everyday life.  Believe it or not all that stuff is in the Bible and it excites me to read it.  I'm hungry for more all the time and the Bible is like a never-ending buffet, better yet, a FREE never-ending buffet.


Instead of eating the sugar the world was offering and constantly crashing only to need more sugar to crash again and never feeling full, I now eat the Word.  It's contrary to the world's sugar, it provides me with energy and excitement to live each day and it doesn't need a side dish, its fully satisfying and has lead me to finally become, fully satisfied.