Tag Archives: complacency

Seeking To Know God More

Several years ago I was at work when a crazy thunderstorm popped up. My boss called me and said she needed help. When I went out the front door of the building, her car was in the street with water over the hood. I waded through the water into the street and told her to put it in neutral. I then pushed the car into the parking lot. As she was getting out of the car, I noticed my wedding ring was missing. I began searching through the high water for it while lightening was striking and it was pouring down rain. I searched for an hour and a half and couldn’t find it. I then waited for the storm to stop and started looking again as the water receded. After another hour of searching, I couldn’t find it. I prayed, “Lord, I give up. I don’t know what to do.” When I opened my eyes, the ring was between my feet.

In Acts 8 there’s the story of an Ethiopian eunuch who went to Jerusalem to worship and was on his way home. What you may not know is that the Old Testament forbid eunuch from entering the Temple. This man had traveled a long way searching for God only to have been turned away. Even in his rejection, he kept searching for God and bought a scroll of Isaiah to help him. As he was reading it, God sent the disciple Philip to go meet him. Philip heard him reading and asked if he understood. The eunuch said no one had guided him to know God or to understand it. So Philip explained the prophesy of Isaiah 53 in reference to Jesus and the Good News. The eunuch wanted to be baptized after that and asked what laws would stop that. I’m sure Philip smiled and said that Jesus was available to all who seek Him. Then he baptized the eunuch.

Jeremiah 29:13 says, “You will seek me, and you will find me because you will seek me with all your heart” (GNT). Even though you have found Jesus as the Ethiopian eunuch did, you must still continue to seek God. Just as you can’t know a person after one encounter, you can’t know God with one. That first encounter brought salvation, but there is so much more God wants us to know about Himself. Have you grown complacent with where you are in your relationship to Him? He says if we will seek Him and search Him out more, you will find there more to Him and that He wants to reveal Himself to you, but you must seek Him with your whole heart. Don’t stop trying to get to know Him, His Word or His ways. Search for Him like a lost treasure. Don’t give up in the middle of a storm. Don’t quit searching just because things are going well either. There is more to God than you can ever know or search out, and He’s willing to show Himself to you if you’re willing to seek Him out.

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A Little Bit Better

I love watching the Olympics every four years. It’s not just the competition that draws me, it’s the desire of these people to get better. They dedicate so much of their life to be the best they can be. I remember watching Michael Phelps compete during several Olympic Games. We cheered when he broke the world record and won gold. We cheered again when he broke his own world record. Did you know he broke his own world record seven times? That’s insane to me! He kept pushing himself to get better all the time. When asked about it, he said, “Yesterday doesn’t matter. It’s about who can get their hand on the wall first today.” That attitude pushed him to not settle.

In the book of Acts, we read about a preacher named Apollos. Chapter 18 says he was making a name for himself because he was passionate for Jesus and was powerful in the Scriptures. He was an educated and cultured person who was winning many to the Lord. When a couple of believers in Ephesus heard him preach, they noticed he was only preaching about the baptism of John and not of the Holy Spirit as well. They took him aside privately to discuss it with him. Instead of letting his pride get in the way, he listened and learned so he could grow. His preaching and life became even more powerful. It even says that after that he became a tremendous help to the believers and caused them to grow in grace. His desire to grow in the Lord and learn more about Scripture caused him to be a force to be reckoned with in the Early Church.

Even Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament wanted to grow and know Christ more fully. In Philippians 3:12 he wrote, “I admit that I haven’t yet acquired the absolute fullness that I’m pursuing, but I run with passion into his abundance so that I may reach the purpose for which Christ Jesus laid hold of me to make me his own” (TPT). If Paul was on a constant journey of growth and pursuit of trying to get closer to Jesus, so should we. When we compare ourselves to others, we can get prideful and complacent. However, when we compare ourselves to Jesus, we realize we still have growth opportunities ahead of us. The Christian life is one of constant growth and pursuing Jesus. You will always have the opportunity to get a little bit better and little bit closer to Jesus.

Photo by Richard R. Schünemann on Unsplash

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