Seriously...

 

    "My son, if thou wilt receive My words, and hide My commandments with thee; so that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; if thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God" (Proverbs 2:1-5).

 

    God's truth is freely given in the Lord Jesus Christ.  However, it must be sought for and received with the utmost seriousness.

 

    Our Heavenly Father calls us to living and vibrant relationship with Him.  "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent" (John 17:3).  Considering His surpassing greatness to ourselves, and the moral gulf that inherently separates Divinity and humanity, this is the most amazing truth we can contemplate.  We seem little more than a tiny, temporary speck of damaged consciousness and frame existing in a universe too vast for our minds to fathom.  That the Creator of such wonder knows of our existence to the degree that He lovingly numbers the very hairs of our heads should often shock and bewilder us.  As we grow in the knowledge of God, we become more expectant of such grace because we discover that this is who He is.  Nevertheless, we must never lose the sense of awe that He whom "the heaven of heavens cannot contain" somehow views human hearts as suitable dwellingplaces (I Kings 8:27).

 

    Nor must we ignore the complete seriousness of relationship with the Lord Jesus.  He sacrificed Himself to the sorrow, pain, forsakenness, and death of Calvary to make possible living union with God.  The Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, literally dwells within our hearts if we have believed.  Our eternal destiny involves the worship of God and service to Him.  And in our present lives, we are commissioned with the high calling of communicating Christ to our world by both example and word.  Every other emphasis and interest pale in comparison to the fact of God present both with and within us, and His working all things in our lives for the glory of the Lord Jesus and our benefit.  Failure to take our relationship with God seriously therefore reveals blindness to reality.  "In Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

 

    These are terribly convicting words to write.  They are penned in the realization of how little I have personally acknowledged and understood the gravity of my own relationship with God in Christ.  There is no excuse for such neglect, and the truth of the matter is that our Heavenly Father does not excuse it.  He does forgive, however, and perhaps you feel as do I that this is an appropriate moment to seek the mercy of God made possible through the Lord Jesus.   We will find Him "ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy," and we shall also find Him more than willing to intensify our devotion as we trust and submit ourselves to the Lord Jesus (Psalm 86:5).  There is no more serious matter for any of us, and every other issue pales in comparison to this, the very Life of our lives...

 

"He is thy life."

(Deuteronomy 30:20)

"Ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart."

(Jeremiah 29:13)