Methods

On January 29, 2021   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 105: 4

Seek the Lord and His strength; Seek His face continually.

That is some good advice if I have ever heard it and it brings up a good point. This is a message for the ages. This is not the first time God has instructed His people to seek Him. So, the message for 2021 is a message for every day of the Christian life. It isn’t new, just what God wants to focus our attention on for this year. Let’s look at other ways to draw near to the Father as we answer the question, “How do we seek Him?”

Prayer, or better still, communication with Him is another key. What does that mean? We have lots of tools at our disposal but just chatting with Him is number one with me. Often, when we discuss prayer a more formal image comes to mind. Also, we usually think of prayer as a form of solicitation or request. Those are important communiques but in search of intimacy we need normal, not formal, conversation with Him. Yahweh is interested in everything you are interested in. So just talk with Him about those things. You will be surprised by some of His comments.

Here are some other ways to connect you may not have thought of. We can also journal, paint, sing, etc. These can all be ways to interact with God. What if you yielded your spirit to the Holy Spirit as your paintbrush hovered over the canvas? What if you just let what the Spirit is feeding your spirit flow out of the tip of the brush? Can you imagine that?

What about journaling? Is that something you like to do? Here is a journaling method you may not have yet discovered. It is called two-way journaling and you can find out more about it at Communion with God Ministries’ website. You can also go my website to see some of my journaling of scripture. Just click on “Journaling with Ivey.” It is a good jumping off place for your own journaling.

What other ways can you think of to draw you deeper in your relationship with God. What are other ways to seek Him?

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Heal and Restore

On October 7, 2020   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

2 Chronicles 7:14

And My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Two different people have sent me this scripture lately. They, like you, wish to see the healing of a nation. This devotional goes out around the world so let’s recognize that we are in different places and having different experiences. Even within a country, the experience can be quite diverse. Still, nations around the world have need of healing.

The keys for national healing are the exact reflection of what we need on a personal level for healing. Let us look at these three important elements to national and personal healing. First, most people will easily see the sin component in this verse. As a nation or as an individual who desires healing, we need to confess our sin. You cannot be healthy knowing you are carrying around sin. It will damage your emotions, relationships and ultimately find expression in your body. So, release your conscience of sin by humbling yourself before the Lord and turning from any form of sin for sin is a cruel task master. Be free of any sin because it is a toxin, then allow the healing to take place.

The part that jumped out at me from this verse is that God challenges us to seek His face. I think it is easy to get caught up in the sin component and overlook the next two pieces, i.e. seeking and praying. God did not say He would heal our land nor heal us without involvement on our part. He calls us into a deeper engagement with Him. “Seek My face,” it is a necessary part of healing individually as well as on a national level.  When God’s people seek HIs face and engage with Him, good things happen.

Lastly, of course, is prayer. Well, how do you seek the Lord’s face and not involve yourself in prayer but . . . I do not think God is talking about petition prayer. What is that you ask? It is my moniker for those prayers which are about what we want Him to do for us: Father, heal me, bless me, pay my bills, care for my children, etc. Those are all good prayers but not what God is talking about here. The kind of prayer referred to in this passage is that which is involved in seeking God’s face. It is about getting quiet and contemplative and looking for Him in your heart, listening to Him speaking out of your own spirit. This is what we do too little of, myself included. If a nation, a family or a person will seek God’s face with heart engagement, then He can move in our realm and bring healing and deliverance.

“Seek the Lord and His strength; Seek His face continually,” Psalm 105: 4

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Hidden and Revealed

On June 24, 2020   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Colossians 3: 1 – 4

Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

We talked about seeking on Monday. Here Paul tells us what else we should seek. So far this year, we have seen that we are to seek the Lord, His strength and His face continually (Psalm 105: 4), His Kingdom and His righteousness (Matthew 6: 33), and now the things which are above. The shorthand is, fix your eyes on Jesus. Keep looking at him because in him is all that matters. All the universe is in him because he is the light, the life and the way.

Seeking is a very important scriptural and spiritual concept and I wouldn’t minimize it in any fashion. Reading this passage, though, one surely is gripped by our death in Jesus, which brings us to the next thought. We need to be resurrection conscious. By this I mean that by now we should have died to ourselves, died with Christ and been raised up with him in a resurrected life. If, then, you have been raised up with Christ, don’t keep looking back at or longing for the old, dead man. Leave the things of the earth to the dirt they are born of and set your heart on the things above. Does that mean you cannot enjoy any of the good things on the earth? No, absolutely not. God has given us all good things to enjoy (1 Timothy 6: 17).

At some level this is about our values. I think of saints I have studied or known about and the over-arching similarity is their devotion to Christ. They buried the old self with its desires and arose with a new value system. It is just fine to enjoy a new car, a new house or a nice vacation. We know that God gives us those things to enjoy. Dying to self means those things no longer occupy the space they once did. In the resurrection life, God is the center of the universe. If our life is truly hidden in God with Christ, we will have made some choices about what is most important to us. These are choices made with the heart. The lover of God could not choose earthly desires over His longing for God because his heart compels him to seek the face of God. This is about loving God above all else. Some of those old saints I have read about would more likely forget to eat than to miss a single day spending time with God. They needed it, craved it.

We love God too but perhaps our zeal is not as vibrant as that of some of the people we read about. However, we can be as impassioned as anyone. We can have such zeal for God that nothing stands in our way when it comes to our devotionals. We too can have an unquenchable passion for the one who loved us first. I know I want more of that passion in my life. I am sure you do too. As we focus our attention on the thing we want, we draw ourselves towards it. Discipline helps too. The use of discipline helps us to develop a lifestyle that later becomes a part of us. As we discipline ourselves to do what we choose, we begin to enjoy the fruit of those disciplines so that we come to desire the thing we had to almost force ourselves to do previously.

Still, it begins with a decision born out of love for our Father. We choose to die to self and the passions of self and instead live to Christ. This is really some heady stuff, very idealistic and not too common. The modern church certainly is not known for its disciplined devotion to Christ. None the less, we are true believers with a love for Christ and we are finding our way into deeper and deeper ways with him. We are products of the past and the teachings of our time. We have journeyed through many aspects of knowledge and balance. I believe we are beginning to long for more of Jesus and Father. We need more of them in our lives, in our very breath and we are leaning forward into them where the life we live is a product of their lives; us in them, them in us. The great news is, they are leaning toward us too. They are calling for us to come into the deep water, water which is over our heads. As scary as that can be, it is a wonderful place to be. With Christ, hidden in God is our life, our old life having been buried.

Where is your heart? What do you want? Tell the Lord and ask him to lead you. This is a new level in Christ and a very safe place.

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Seeker

On June 22, 2020   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 105: 4

Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His face continually.

Perhaps the most important, certainly some of the best advice in the Bible, this verse speaks the essence of the intertwined partnership, a valuable life model. Seeking Yahweh’s face in every event, even in every moment of life establishes a life lived with God Himself. It is the epitome of Christian experience.

The keyword in this verse is, “continually.” Seeking God’s face continually implies an action and denotes where our energy is spent. However, the precursor of seeking God’s face is staying our thoughts upon Him. Having God constantly on our minds is the underlying requirement of seeking Him continually. Seeking the Lord moment by moment can only come to those who are truly enamored with the Lord. In other words, God is already on your mind. So, when you face a situation or question, it becomes a simple thing to inquire of Him because He is already on your mind. It is natural to seek His strength and knowledge because He is already in the room with you.

Think of spending all day with the Lord Jesus or being aware of the Father’s presence all day. Perhaps, though, this is not a day of meditation. Maybe it is just a normal workday, but all day long you are conscious of God’s presence with you. Doesn’t that sound nice? That continuing presence is the fruit of the meditative times you spent alone with Him. Learning to reside in His continual presence is a process the same as learning anything. The practice of communing with God is forged in some of those quiet hours of meditation. It is wrought in the times of intense seeking and it bears fruit in the day to day existence. Truly, nothing is greater than residing in God’s presence. We all know that. Getting there, however, is not always easy. It isn’t a push button system. Living in that knowing presence of God comes from the times of seeking, but before you know it, you find He is nearby all the time.

There will be periods of intense seeking of the Lord, times when you need a specific answer to a specific problem. There is, though, also the day to day abiding with Him, seeking His face continually and that becomes a very comfortable existence. Seeking His face, not only His power, reveals and intimacy and relationship. God isn’t sought only for what He can do but merely for His presence. We can become accustomed to His presence not for what He says or what He does but just because we enjoy being with Him. Seek His face continually and you will enjoy greater and greater companionship with the Lord.

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What we Need

On August 17, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 105: 4


Seek the Lord and His strength; seek His face continually.

If you need strength today, it is in the Lord. You do not even have to seek strength just seek Him. All of the wisdom and knowledge you need are in Him also, so when you seek Him you gain all of the strength you need as well as every other thing you need. Really, all of life can begin to boil down to this concept because if we will seek Him he will give us all that we need in every arena of life. He is willing and able to assist you in every single area of your life. From locating your misplaced keys to the wisdom you need in making an important decision, He is there to assist you. Seek His face continually and He will fill your life with His very essence wherein all good things exist.

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