We enjoyed the company of Bobby’s mom this weekend as she came to visit Thursday evening to Monday morning. We were noticing that since they have moved to California, we have seen them more times in the last six months that we have in the last three years! Our weekend highlights included: large blocks of time spent at our other apartment painting our new living room a more tasteful color (before and after pictures to come…), several rounds of Mille Bournes, a delicious dinner at Casa Lupe–which even included live Mariachi music!–and long discussions of church ministry philosophy and how at five and a half months, my shape has definitely changed. All in all a fun and profitable weekend together.

I was introduced to a new idea this weekend: “live-blogging.” Ty spent the weekend in Minnesota attending John Piper’s Desiring God conference. At home Bobby and I avidly frequented [1] Challies.com to be updated on each session as Tim Challies wrote about and posted almost immediately after each session. We were quite into it and have not stopped talking amongst ourselves about what future event we could possibly “live-blog.”

Sunday, Bobby gave a stirring message challenging believers to seek God. Bobby has shown well in this series that Scripture is clear on a few points:

1) God is seeking worshippers (John 4:23-24)
2) No man seeks God (Romans 3:10-12)
3) Jesus came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10)
4) God draws people to His Son to be saved (John 6:44)
5) Once saved, we are to seek Him (Jeremiah 29:13)

True Christians seek God, wanting Him more than anything else. Seeking God does not return void. In Jeremiah 29:13 God promises that if we seek Him, we will find Him. Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” It isn’t enough just to believe that God exists. Even Satan and the demons believe that (James 2:19). Those who have saving faith will seek Him diligently. Bobby pointed out that “diligent” doesn’t bring to mind something casual, a weekend hobby or something done lightly. “Diligent” brings to mind something pursued energetically and consistently. This is how we ought to seek God, as if we want Him more than anything else. The truth is that we often want many things above God. Sometimes we try to get our priorities straight and say, “Okay God will be first, then family, church, school, work, friends…” We wake up to start our day with God and then forget about Him as we attend to family, church, school and so on. But this is not what seeking Him is all about. He must be first in all things in our lives. He must be first in our day, first in family, first in church, first in school, etc.

To remind us that God must be first in all things and what we seek, Bobby gave the following:

1) God must be the only thing I seek in life. “One thing I have desired of the Lord, that I will seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord.” Psalm 27:4

2) I must seek the kingdom of God first. “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” Matthew 6:33

3) I must seek God with all my heart. “Seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.” Deuteronomy 4:29

I found this lesson to be very convicting because I thought of how so much of my time and energy is spent seeking comfort, pleasure, reputation and temporary things of this world. Bobby asked the students, “If your family lived down in New Orleans and your parents were loading up the car and you had to evacuate that moment and one of your parents came to you and said, ‘You are going to have to leave all of your belongings, and everything we have is probably going to be destroyed in this hurricane, but pick one thing to bring with you, one thing you can’t live without.’ What would you say?” I thought alot about his question. Would I say with the psalmist that God is the one thing that I desire and the one thing I can’t live without? In all things, is what matters most a right relationship with the Lord? I want to say with the psalmist, “When You said, ‘Seek My face,’ my heart said to You, ‘Your face, Lord I will seek.’” Psalm 27:8