The truth and greatness of Christianity is that God is seeking us. No other religion can make this claim for it is Christianity’s uniqueness. What or whom are you seeking? I ask that question because every one of us is seeking something. Last week we looked at our desire to be happy and the ways we seek to be happy, most of which leave us empty. Happiness is fleeting because it is based on externals and on circumstances. Take away the circumstances and externals and we quickly become unhappy.

The Bible teaches that our happiness is an internal thing, a matter of the soul. Because you are here it is obvious that you are in some sense seeking God. You may or may not know what that is exactly but you are looking for something that is beyond you.

This Fall we are focusing on Seeking Him. A variety of small groups will be using the workbook entitled, Seeking Him—Experiencing the Joy [happiness] of Personal Revival, as we look at a variety of themes including grace, humility, purity, holiness, repentance, honesty, and others. I encourage you to get involved with a small group as that is the best way to seek Christ and study the Bible, but if that is not an option for you, then you could use this in your personal devotional/study time.

In Matthew’s gospel Jesus is preaching the famed Sermon on the Mount. Listen to a portion of what Jesus said that day. In verse 7 Jesus is encouraging his listeners to do 3 things: ask, seek, and knock. God’s divine initiative seeks us, but it is not all on God. Ours is to respond to that call and that is what Jesus is talking about here. The given is that God is seeking us and when we ask the answer will be given us. When we seek, we shall find. When we knock, the door will be opened. For emphasis and just in case some of His listeners missed it, Jesus repeats this truth in verse 8, “For everyone who asks, receives; he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Now for a little Bible study—in New Testament Greek there are 2 different kinds of imperatives. One is called aorist imperative and the other is present imperative. The aorist is a one-time act and the present imperative is an on-going action. “Shut the door” is an aorist tense in that it is a one-time action—started, done, and finished. The present imperative however is an on-going action—“Always shut doors behind you.” Jesus here is using the present imperative tense saying, “Keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking.” When you do that, it will be given to you constantly, you will keep on finding, and it will always be open to you,.

A major problem in Christian circles is the subtle belief that Christian experience is aorist imperative, that is a one-time action. You say your prayers and when you are done you are done. But the Bible says that we are “to pray without ceasing.” We think that revivals are events that have a beginning and an ending, but the Bible says that we are to be constantly being renewed. We think worship is a Sunday morning event in church, but the Bible teaches us that worship is an attitude and activity that knows no time or space boundaries. The biggest subtle belief is that we reduce Christianity to repeating the sinner’s prayer or asking Jesus into our hearts thinking it to be an aorist imperative, i.e. a one-shot action. The Bible teaches that being a Christian is being in an on-going relationship with Jesus. Yes, it has a beginning but it has no ending and is in fact eternal.

That is why Jesus uses the present imperative in the Sermon on the Mount and not the aorist imperative because being a disciple of Jesus is not an act but a relationship. Jesus is calling us to be His disciples who desire this on-going relationship, who are constantly asking, seeking and knocking, who are thirsty for something more.

You have seen the infomercials, the ones who claim that in only a few weeks you will be worth tens of thousands of dollars by investing in real estate. If you use this special system developed by a renowned real estate investor, you too can be rich. And people fork out the $100.00 to get rich. Of the people who buy in, 90% never buy a single property. How many of us ‘buy in’ to Jesus and get the spiritual CDs and it ends right there? That is NOT the idea!

And that is not the idea either when it comes to being a Christian. The problem is that it doesn’t come naturally nor does it come easily. We are not naturally prone after the things of God. We are not instinctively bent toward being righteous. This is why revival is important. This is why doing those things that keeps the spiritual waters flowing are important. This is why spiritual growth is so important. God calls us not only to accept Jesus as your Savior but also to be in a continuous, on-going relationship with Him…to keep asking, to keep seeking, to keep knocking. We call it growing in Jesus. To the Christians at Colosse Paul wrote (2:7), “So then just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.” Here’s that idea of an on-going relationship again. It’s the idea of growth. We can never rest on our laurels. Why? Because Christianity is dynamic which means it is always moving, always doing something, and always changing. The opposite of dynamic is being stagnate. If a child stops growing, it is great cause for alarm and we bring all the resources we can muster to get that child growing again. If you stop growing spiritually, it is great cause for alarm because we are not made to stagnate. Stagnation is not good. Have you ever been close to a stagnate pond? It stinks, doesn’t it? It stinks because there is no growth, no change, no addition of fresh water into it and no outlet of water from it. Christianity is never meant to be stagnate and remain the same. If it does it not only means that we are not growing, it also means that we are stagnating, dying, going backwards. The life is being sucked out of us and spiritual death is the result.

Here’s often the problem—we get comfortable with the way things are. We are content with our walk with Jesus and are often not even aware that spiritually we are beginning to atrophy, stagnate and the breath of the Holy Spirit is slowly leaking out of us. That’s why revival is so important because it helps us to take a look to see if there are any leaks. Revival beings when we give Jesus permission to do an inspection to see if there are spiritual termites, or cracks in the foundation, or leaking roofs, or sagging gutters, or broken windows, or drafty doors, or squeaking floorboards. When He reveals the truth about our spiritual house, then we can take steps to allow Jesus the Carpenter to make repairs.

Let me warn you now. Revival is a good thing but it is not always easy nor comfortable. Sometimes it is costly. Repairing cracked foundations is not cheap nor easy. Replacing a broken window might entail replacing all the windows. You got to get rid of the termites before they destroy the house. Revival often means a re-evaluation of our lifestyles, our priorities, involvements, activities, and our commitments. I will promise you this: revival is always an adventure and it is an exciting ride.

Jesus goes on in Matthew 7:9 and says, “Which of you if your son asks for bread would give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish would give him a snake?” Luke’s gospel adds, “Or if he asks for an egg would give him a scorpion?” No father worth his salt would do such a thing. “If then,” said Jesus, “you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your son, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him?”

All of us, everyone of us, needs to be seeking Jesus so that we might be all He wants us to be, so that our church would be renewed and refreshed, and so that the name of Jesus be honored above all names.

Thank You for Taking The Time to Read This Message.
May God Use These Words to Help You and Strengthen You.