Following Hard After God

Psalm 63:8
My soul clings to you;
Your right hand upholds me.

Doctrine of prevenient grace:

• Before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man.
• The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after Him. (Divine upholding and Human following)

Psalm 42:1-2

As the deer pants for streams of water,

so my soul pants for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When can i go and meet with God?

Doctrine of justification by faith (a biblical truth), has fallen into evil company and has been interpreted by many in such a manner as actually bar men from the knowledge of God

1. Faith exercised without a jar to the moral life
2. without embarrassment to the Adamic ego
3. The man is 'saved' but he is not hungry nor thirsty after God.

It is true in the Bible to say that a man is justified by faith, not by deeds. However this truth has often than not been interpreted wrongly. Some believe that faith alone can gain you salvation, so there is no need to change our morals. On one hand we want to go to heaven (so we believe in Jesus), and yet on the other hand we want to live our OWN life. This thinking cannot be tolerated as the Adamic ego is still in control here. Adamic ego is a form of self-worshipping, letting "me" take control of my life and often than not, a platform for sinning. As Martin Luther said, "Faith alone can save you, but if faith is alone, it is not faith."

God communicates with us through

1. the avenues of our minds
2. our wills
3. our emotions

Intercourse between God and the soul is known to us in conscious personal awareness.

• it is personal
• it is conscious - it does not stay below the threshold of consciousness and work there unknown to the soul
• comes within the field of awareness where the man can know it as he knows any other fact of experience.

The great tragedy that is happening in the world today is that

• our seeking is done for us by our teachers
• everything is made to centre upon the initial act of 'accepting' Christ (a term not found in the Bible) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls.

Some Christians today have this wrong logic of if we have found Him, we need no more seek Him.

So how do we find God then?

• first and foremost, we must be determined to find Him
• proceed in the way of simplicity
• strip down to the bare essentials
• put away all efforts to impress and come with the guileless candour of childhood.

If we would have religion 'lapped and folden in one word', it will be 'God' or 'Love'. The man who has God for his treasure has all things in one.

Prayer:

O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, 'Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.' Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus' name, Amen!