God wants His creation to be fascinated with Him and His ways.

Passages like Isaiah 40 are examples of how God wants us to always have hearts that pursue and seek out the mystery of God and His ways.

Isaiah 40:12-18,21-26
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand?
And marked off the heavens with a span,
enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure
and weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in a balance?
Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord,
or what man shows him his counsel?
Whom did he consult,
and who made him understand?
Who taught him the path of justice,
and taught him knowledge,
and showed him the way of understanding?
Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
and are accounted as the dust on the scales;
behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.
Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,
nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.
All the nations are as nothing before him,
they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.
To whom then will you liken God,
or what likeness compare with him?….
Do you not know? Do you not hear?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
who brings princes to nothing,
and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.
Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when he blows on them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
To whom then will you compare me,
that I should be like him? says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high and see:
who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name,
by the greatness of his might,
and because he is strong in power
not one is missing.

As we can see from these acts of God in creation there is no one in the universe who can compare with Him. In light of this fact, how come the vast majority of time we as believers don’t seem to be fascinated by Him? By fascinated I mean ardently pursuing God and seeking to get to know Him and His ways more than all other earthly pursuits.

If the devil can make someone addicted to drugs and alcohol, or obsessed enough with a vice like gambling to destroy a person’s family relationships, then the Holy Spirit can truly make us fascinated with the pursuit of God, but only if we allow Him to work this in our hearts. Instead, we seem to be more fascinated with ourselves, or both Christian and non-Christian celebrities in sports, music, and politics.

As a pastor, my experience has been that the average believer spends much more time watching television or participating in social media than they spend studying the Bible and praying. I am not saying when we live like this we are not sincere in our faith or that we are not true Christians. We are saved by grace, not by works, based on the unmerited favor we obtained through the vicarious redemption of Christ on the cross. What I am saying is that most of us are missing the best God has to offer us if we are merely interested in Him in the same way we would be interested in learning how to sew, dance, or play an instrument.

God is not looking for perfunctory prayers (the act of saying prayers) or brief scripture readings like one would read a newspaper as a casual enquirer. He is looking for true worshippers (John 4:34), people who pant after His law (Psalm 119), who thirst and pant for God as the deer pants for water (Psalm 42), and who recognize that the best this world has to offer is a dry and weary land where there is no water, resulting in us living lives of earnestly pursuing and seeking God (Psalm 63)!

If we are to admit it, most of us are not living the more abundant life Jesus promised us (John 10:10) or experiencing a life full of righteousness, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). Many are deceived, thinking merely getting fed once per week by the “man of God” or having hands laid on them during an altar call on a Sunday will be enough to heal body, soul and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23). But we find that we are in the same place of need week after week!

I believe we are seeking for answers in all the wrong places. Often we are just as confused as to our true identity — basing it on things like our ministry, job or success in life rather than in Christ — as those without Christ. We try to make up the lack with excess entertainment, eating and drinking, socializing on Facebook, and attaching ourselves to one hobby or one interest after another. Then we wonder why we are often lonely, discouraged, depressed and defeated by the enemy of our souls! Could it be the answer is as simple as making the transition towards being fascinated with God once again, continually craving, striving to carve out time alone with Him and with the body of seeking believers, earnestly pursuing Him and centering our lives again on Jesus — in a word, to be fascinated with Him again (as we probably were when we first came to faith in Christ).

The truth is this: If we are fascinated with anything in life other than Jesus then we don’t really know Him intimately! Taste and see that the Lord is good (Psalm 34:7). The more we seek Him the more He will disclose of Himself to us (James 4:4); the more He discloses of Himself; the more we will want of Him; the more we want and seek Him the more addicted we will be to seeking Him even more. We will find ourselves becoming like Moses when, in the presence of God, the one request he had was for God to show him His ways that he could know Him (Exodus 33:13), that He would reveal His glory to him (Exodus 33:18). Moses did not ask God for worldly riches, honor or power. We will find ourselves obsessed with knowing and serving God like the Apostle Paul, whose main quest in life was to know Jesus and the power of His resurrection and fellowship of His suffering (Philippians 3:10). Paul paid the price for this quest by suffering the loss of his former worldly prestige, fame, money and reputation because he counted everything in creation but dung that he might gain Christ (Philippians 3:8).

In conclusion: Could it be that all the hard times we have in our earthly journey, all the disappointments, loss, unfilled dreams and imperfect conditions all around us are ordained of God to motivate us towards seeking and centering our lives, identities and goals around the One Perfect Being in the cosmos? If scripture is true (and I believe it is), then we will never be fully satisfied in this world if we center our lives on our families, ministries, worldly successes or any earthly pleasures. All of these are hollow types and shadows compared to the One True God who alone can satisfy the deep yearnings and hungers of the human heart.

Let’s make a commitment today to live to seek Him as never before! Only then will we have our full reward (Hebrews 11:6) and experience an abundant life! Truly, if we live only interested in Him as casual enquirers engaged in occasional perfunctory prayers and brief scripture readings then His commandments will be burdensome to us. But if we commune with Him and seek Him more, then we will experience the incredible fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, as found in Galatians 5:22-23) which naturally emanates from a heart consumed by and filled with God!

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