Sun am 18 March 2018 – Riaan Sinden

Matt. 14:25-28; (Ps. 23:4); (2 Cor. 3:6); (Ps. 42:1-2); (Matt. 6:10, 21); Eccl. 3:14-15; (Heb. 13:8); (Rev. 22:13); Phil. 3:8-14; Matt. 13:44-46; Ex. 33:14-16; Ps. 27:4; Ps. 84:1-2; Luke 2:37; (Luke 10:38-42); 1 Cor. 2:2

Some people are happy with where they are in God, they do not want to step out and say, “There is so much more”. But there is so much more in God! God is ripping off the veil of the understanding which we have of Him. God is opening up our eyes to who He really is. Peter was the only one who cried out to Jesus (Matt. 14:25-28). He wanted to do what no-one else had ever done before, walk on water! The risk we take in reaching out to God and exposing ourselves is that we may make mistakes, and be tested. We are going to be tested! Even when we go through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil because God is with us (Ps. 23:4). God wants to be our all in all. God is not satisfied with anything less than His image and His likeness. He created us in His image and likeness, to be an exact representation of who He is in this earth. We manifest God and His fullness. That is why we should have the desperation to come into His fullness. God wants to live through us. The letter kills but the Spirit gives life (2 Cor. 3:6). God wants us to encounter what He already achieved, and there is an alignment required. That alignment expresses itself as a hunger or desperation to experience God in His fullness (Ps. 42:1-2). How desperate are we to experience His Kingdom and His will to be done on earth as in heaven, not only on a personal level but corporately as well? (Matt. 6:10)

Our journey in Christ is to discover who we are in Christ. We need to make time to fellowship with Him. I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him. That which is has been already and that which will be has already been, for God seeks what has passed by (Eccl. 3:14-15). God requires an account of the past, the present and the future. It is not about what we have done or are going to do; it is about everything in between. In one line we have the future, the present and the past. Everything goes back to the beginning; the future is the past, the present is the past and God requires it all from us. What happened in the past? The Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world. God established us in Christ, in Him. What God did then, He completed first. That is how God operates, He first completes things then He starts it. When God creates a seed, what He sees is a forest. When He created us, what did He see? He saw a corporate son living desperately for Him. He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8). He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end (Rev. 22:13). God does not change, but we change, because anything that encounters God changes. Paul had it all but when He encountered God, he counted it all as rubbish (Phil. 3:8). He is the air we breathe, but let it not only be words; let it be a cry in our hearts after God. It is important that we make time for Him.

Are we desperate enough to let go of everything we think is valuable, everything we think is important, everything that we hold dear to follow Him? Are we desperate enough to let everything go; to seek Him first and to sell everything for Him? (Matt. 13:44-46). Wherever you are and wherever you need to be, spend it in God’s presence. Could it be that our choices reveal our heart? Could it be that our choices reveal our desperation? Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matt. 6:21).

I want to focus on six people in the Bible who were hungry for God. They desired Him and would not let go. They followed their appetite and it led them to God.

1. Moses – He refused to go anywhere without God’s presence. That would distinguish him and Israel from all the other people on the face of the earth (Ex. 33:14-16). More than anything else Moses wanted the mark of God’s presence upon himself and the people of God. Instead of fitting in, Moses wanted to stand out. Is God the differentiating mark in our lives?
2. David – There was one thing he treasured more than anything else (Ps. 27:4). David was good at many things. He was a shepherd, a warrior, a poet and a king, but there was one thing he wanted more than anything else, that one thing was to seek God. David wanted the Lord. What is the one thing we are searching for? And who are we desperate for?
3. The sons of Korah – They expressed an absolute desperation for God (Ps. 84:1-2). They longed after Him, their only yearning was for God. What do we yearn for?
4. Anna – She filled her days and nights in God’s presence. She never left the temple, night and day, fasting and praying (Luke 2:37). Her life was a continuous conversation with God. She lived face to face with God. Do we make enough time to fellowship with God?
5. Mary of Bethany – Although there was a lot of work to do, Mary sat at Jesus’ feet. Martha was upset but Jesus said Mary had chosen the better thing (Luke 10:38-42). Intimacy with God will eventually produce service. Service does not necessarily produce intimacy with God. We should pursue intimacy with God first.
6. Paul – He had a single focus. It was nothing but Christ; nothing else mattered to him (1 Cor. 2:2). He gave up his freedom and ultimately his life, but his encounter with God made him the most desperate man after the truth of God. Are we desperate enough to say as Paul said, I count all things to be loss [a]in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:8-14).

In our desperate search for God, we will experience loss, but we gain so much more because God is our all in all.