“One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek Him in his temple.” Psalm 27:4
As I spent time seeking the Lord for this week’s article, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was a little off track. You might wonder, how can that be? Isn’t seeking the Lord always the right thing? Absolutely! But as I sat down to write my Weekly Word, something deeper, more profound than words was stirring in my spirit. It was as though the words just wouldn’t come—they felt forced and unnatural. It was a struggle to gather my thoughts, let alone express them. In that moment, I realized it was the Father’s gentle call for me to stop striving and to enter His rest. I quickly stopped writing, closed my eyes, quieted my soul, focused my heart on Him, and sat in the refreshing richness of His presence. Oh, what sweet delight! Can you say, game-changer?
As I often do, I started out by seeking Him for what to write this week, and while there is nothing wrong with that approach, I had simply fallen into a pattern of the what instead of the Who. When the ‘Who’becomes a formality in the search for the ‘what’, we have missed the boat! There is nothing more important in this life than the Who! When Moses asked God, “Who shall I say has sent me, the Lord replied, I AM!” He really is! He is the most important one in existence! When we run past the Who to get to the what, we have truly failed to see or appreciate where the real value lies. I think that is called taking Him for granted. (sarcasm intended!)
It’s always an exhilarating high to receive revelation from the Father! It can become somewhat addictive! I love the experience that comes from the transformational influence of Heaven, through what He reveals to me. It’s always so refreshing! In the same context, it can become very easy to begin to seek the principles over the Principal. Let me clear that up for you with one of His revelations to me, it’s a Kingdom Factor: Having a relationship with the Principal, that’s God, the 1st in importance and highest in authority, is vastly more important than having a relationship with His principles, meaning truths or revelations.
Seeking and knowing Him is the name of the Game. When we get addicted to or in a relationship with the principles alone, we can easily fall into the pattern of religion or law. When we are in a relationship with the Father, we are walking in the power of grace! There is a huge difference! The truths in our hands, along with our human reasoning, can lead us to do things that are just plain wrong. You may say, ” How can this be?” Well, without Love, that’s the Who, that’s God, the truths cannot be wielded by us alone. The truths are the sword of the Spirit. Remember Peter in the garden? Yeah, he cut a guy’s ear off, and Jesus had to fix it. Trying to use the principles without the Principal’s leadership is downright dangerous! It is the equivalent of operating the Kingdom without the King.
If you’ve ever read the story of David, it’s easy to see why he felt so strongly about keeping the first thing first: God. When he wrote Psalm 27:4, he wasn’t just talking from scriptural knowledge. David had personally experienced the depth of God’s goodness. He longed for God so much that nothing else could ever satisfy his soul! As important as the principles were, only the Father would suffice. Jesus, in much the same heart and experience with the Father, charged us to seek first the Kingdom. He was talking about going after God with the same kind of passion David burned with in Psalm 27.
This passionate pursuit comes by experiencing the immeasurable value of God’s love in a way that completely overwhelms us—so much so that nothing else can compare. God pours out His gifts because of His love. It’s so important not to get so focused on the blessings and revelations that we lose sight of the One who gives them. We, like David and Jesus, must keep the first thing first. The only way that happens is to stay in the right relationship.
The enemy is very good at getting us isolated on what God said or on a distorted version of it. It is his tactic to get our eyes off the Who and onto the what. It is a place where He can lead us into human reason rather than relying on the breath of God in every moment of truth. The reality is that we need that ever-deepening relational equity with the Father to keep us covered and safe from the enemy’s hype.
One of my favorite scriptures, one that I choose bible translations from, is Psalms 91. In the first verse of this Psalm, it says, He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. There is so much power in the language here. It literally means that when we put the Who first, we are kept entirely out of the sight of our enemy in the secret place of protection in God. As important as His word is, and I have the highest opinion of it, the Who is so much more!
I want to encourage us all to keep the first thing first. Let’s remember to keep the Who before the what, so the what doesn’t lead us away from the Who. After all, without the Who, the what will cease to exist. Let us adopt the heart of David and loudly proclaim, “One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek Him!”
Kingdom living doesn’t happen by accident.
#hardchargingkingdomseekers
In the passionate pursuit of His Kingdom,
Pastor Jason
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