Why is seeking God important?

But let us hear what he says who writes these divine words: "In this was manifested the love of God towards us, in that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him." This was His very object. There was no life here, nor could life be got through any other. It was not enough to point to the Son in heaven; that would not satisfy God. No, God sent His Son into the world that we might live through Him; and it is in this way that souls do live. He sets before us this One, and tells us who the Son of God is, even Jesus — undoubtedly the son of man, but the Son of God, the only-begotten Son of the Father, yet God just as much as His Father. You are a man if you are the son of your father. In a still more glorious, ineffable way was the only-begotten Son of God Son of the Father. And in this also it is that God triumphs, because man had only believed a lie, judging of God by Himself — the sure way to be lost. You cannot by searching find out God. The Son of God, "the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." Thus the simplest believer knows the only true God; there is none he knows so well. He is known by my need, by my wants, in His own divine love and skill meeting me where I am and in spite of all that I am.

For what, let us ask, is true worship? It is simply telling out, in the presence of God, what He is, and what He has done. It is the heart occupied with, and delighting in God and in all His marvellous actings and ways. Now, if we have no knowledge of God, and no faith in what He has done, how can we worship Him? "He that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." But, then, to know God is life eternal. I cannot worship God if I do not know Him; and I cannot know Him without having eternal life. The Athenians had erected an altar "to the unknown God," and Paul told them that they were worshipping in ignorance, and proceeded to declare to them the true God as revealed in the Person and work of the Man Christ Jesus.

Man as he is naturally lives without God, acted on by the things he sees around him, a prey to the desires of the flesh and of the mind. In order to a spiritual link with God he needs a revelation from Him; and God is now sending this in the glad tidings concerning His Son, that men may believe and be saved. Thus does the soul know God, and Jesus Christ whom He did send, and this is life eternal. By faith he begins to feel and think according to God; and faith is the reception of a divine testimony. Thereby he sets to his seal that God is true. The word of God mixed with faith puts into immediate association with God.

"Seek." This active verb should provoke interest and desire; it suggests that there is something well worthwhile discovering. In the gift of the Holy Spirit of God we have ability to search out discerningly the precious matters which this seeking has in view, and He, if unhindered, would promote the necessary spiritual impulse in our affections to that end. David in Psalm 27 says "One thing have I desired of the LORD that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in His temple". At home in the presence of God, delighting in His beauty (His graciousness), would create in the affections still further desires for the knowledge of His mind and glory — desires met as one inquired "of Him in His temple" (New Trans.) Embedded in this word seek is the thought of "worship" and the atmosphere of the Psalm would most surely confirm this! How great the reward for those who truly seek — nearness to God; an increasing sense of His glory and His thoughts of love, resulting in a spirit of intelligent, affectionate worship.

I think especially of those who are young. What an encouragement it is to find God coming in to confirm us in our desires to seek Him. "Seek ye my face," He says. It is sweet to Him that we should seek Him. What a compensation for the soul that knows what it is to be set on this one thing, to be in His presence beholding His beauty. He satisfies the longing soul. He creates the longing that He may satisfy it. And with the satisfying comes a capacity for deeper longing. It is blessed to know what it is to have these divinely created longings. It is thus He carries on the growth of our souls.

Thus cried the Psalmist as his soul panted after God, and God has answered his cry. He had purposed to do so before time began, so that every one who sought Him right find their full joy in Him, and that in a way that never could have entered into any human mind. The way He has done it is told out in the Gospel of John the Apostle; where we see the height from which “the light” and “the truth” have come, the greatness of the One who was sent forth to be both; the depths of shame into which He went to save us; and the triumphant way in which He leads us, not to God's altars merely, but to His very home and heart. For the light and truth have not been sent forth in vain, and Jesus, who is “the light” and “the truth,” has revealed the Father so blessedly that He has become infinitely attractive to us, He has become our exceeding joy.

Thus cried the Psalmist as his soul panted after God, and God has answered his cry. He had purposed to do so before time began, so that every one who sought Him right find their full joy in Him, and that in a way that never could have entered into any human mind. The way He has done it is told out in the Gospel of John the Apostle; where we see the height from which "the light" and "the truth" have come, the greatness of the One who was sent forth to be both; the depths of shame into which He went to save us; and the triumphant way in which He leads us, not to God's altars merely, but to His very home and heart. For the light and truth have not been sent forth in vain, and Jesus, who is "the light" and "the truth," has revealed the Father so blessedly that He has become infinitely attractive to us, He has become our exceeding joy.

But this satisfaction lies in the knowledge of God, as He has been revealed in Jesus, who was here seeking the lost. Only in that which He came to bestow could true satisfaction be found. He was here making the Father known, that man might be brought, not only to find every need of his heart met by this wonderful revelation, but that he might become a worshipper of that Father in spirit and in truth. And for this He not only came into this world, but laid down His life.

And the Father was seeking worshippers, those who would worship Him in spirit and in truth. He wanted His poor creature to know Him in His true character, so that he might no longer be under the power of darkness, but in the light, where only life and satisfaction of soul are found; and that he might be there with his cup of happiness full to the brim and his heart flowing over in praise and worship.

Nicodemus took the first step, and the right step, when that night he came to Jesus — impelled, no doubt, by desires to know something more about Him, desires that nothing but Christ could gratify. It was the expression of the inward craving of the heart, that man, unknown to himself, has after God. Why is man seeking after God? Because he has lost Him — he knows that Wherever you find men trying to reach after God, it is only a confession, — a tacit confession possibly — that they have lost God, they know Him not Where will they find Him? They can only find Him, where, thank God, Nicodemus found Him, in the person of the Man who died on the cross for sinners. There only is the place where man can fully find God. You cannot so find Him, in creation. You there find His handiwork, not Himself. "The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament shows his handiwork" (Ps. 19:1). But that is not Himself. You may have seen a fine piece of sculpture, and admired it greatly; and you have also been shown a magnificent picture, and you have, in your rapture, said, What a wonderful genius, what a hand that man has! Look at the skill of his chisel, and the power of his brush — what a wonderful man! Stop, I will tell you something about him. He is utterly selfish, beats his wife, and starves his children. Seeing his handiwork does not declare to you his nature — you do not learn his heart. If I turn to nature, and study creation, I see the "eternal power," and almightiness of the Lord there, but that does not bring out His heart. No, you never get the heart of God brought fully out until you come to that which this scripture brings before us. Here you have the Son of the living God standing before a man dead in sins, and telling him that His Father has so loved a ruined guilty world as to give His Son to die for it. God is Love.

But there is a kind of desire that never comes to anything: "The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing." I have known people who had great desires, but who still never came to anything. There was no bottom, as it were, to the soul, no foundation so to say. There was no saying, I will make this the one simple purpose of my life. I think the reason that we know so little, of the Lord is because there is so little purpose to know Him. If a man of the world purposes to have a future here, do you think he dreams his life away? In proportion to the earnestness of his desire to attain his object, is the earnestness of his pursuit of it. Why, it is wonderful what a man of the world will do and suffer to attain the object of his heart. And yet the saint, who has a far higher object set before him, an object passing anything that the natural mind can conceive, is too often found lazy, idle, purposeless in his soul. "Seek the Lord while he may be found," we often say to sinners, but I believe we ought rather to say it to ourselves. I long to have deeper acquaintance with Him — to seek Him. As the Psalmist says, "One thing have I desired of the Lord; that will I seek, after."