Seeking The Lord
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Preparation
Preparation
Seeking God requires preparation
12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the Lord, Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.
Before one begins to sow one must preprare the groung by breaking the fallow Ground through ploughing
We also must prepare our hearts when it’s time to seek God.
Because seeking God is a very serious matter
14 And he did evil, because he did not prepare his heart to seek the Lord.
Rehoboam did Evil in God’s sight because he did not prepare his heart to seek the Lord.
Glory in His holy name;
Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the Lord!
Seek the Lord and His strength;
Seek His face evermore!
In what way do we Prepare our Heart to seek God.
In what way do we Prepare our Heart to seek God.
20 For the priests and the Levites had purified themselves; all of them were ritually clean. And they slaughtered the Passover lambs for all the descendants of the captivity, for their brethren the priests, and for themselves.
21 Then the children of Israel who had returned from the captivity ate together with all who had separated themselves from the filth of the nations of the land in order to seek the Lord God of Israel.
The people of Israel prepared themselves to seek the Lord by separating themselves from the uncleaness of the nations.
They did not seek God while being polluted by the filthiness of the world.
Seaparation is key in preparing oneself to seek the Lord.
While we are fasting and praying we cannot be indulging in the uncleaness of the World.
God looks at what we do during the time we are fasting and praying
1 “Cry aloud, spare not; Lift up your voice like a trumpet; Tell My people their transgression, And the house of Jacob their sins.
2 Yet they seek Me daily, And delight to know My ways, As a nation that did righteousness, And did not forsake the ordinance of their God. They ask of Me the ordinances of justice; They take delight in approaching God.
3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and You have not seen? Why have we afflicted our souls, and You take no notice?’ “In fact, in the day of your fast you find pleasure, And exploit all your laborers.
4 Indeed you fast for strife and debate, And to strike with the fist of wickedness. You will not fast as you do this day, To make your voice heard on high.
5 Is it a fast that I have chosen, A day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush, And to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Would you call this a fast, And an acceptable day to the Lord?
Seek God with all the Heart and Soul
Seek God with all the Heart and Soul
11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.
13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.
14 I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive.
God had promised to be found to those who search and seek him with all their heart.
12 Then they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul;
13 and whoever would not seek the Lord God of Israel was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.
14 Then they took an oath before the Lord with a loud voice, with shouting and trumpets and rams’ horns.
15 And all Judah rejoiced at the oath, for they had sworn with all their heart and sought Him with all their soul; and He was found by them, and the Lord gave them rest all around.
The people of ISrael sought him with all their soul and heart and the Lord was found by them and gave them rest all around
21 And in every work that he began in the service of the house of God, in the law and in the commandment, to seek his God, he did it with all his heart. So he prospered.
In everything we seek God for we have to do it with all our hearts and God will answer us and will propser our ways
The Power of Fasting and praying
The Power of Fasting and praying
20 So Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me, O my enemy?” And he answered, “I have found you, because you have sold yourself to do evil in the sight of the Lord:
21 ‘Behold, I will bring calamity on you. I will take away your posterity, and will cut off from Ahab every male in Israel, both bond and free.
22 I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, because of the provocation with which you have provoked Me to anger, and made Israel sin.’
23 And concerning Jezebel the Lord also spoke, saying, ‘The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.’
24 The dogs shall eat whoever belongs to Ahab and dies in the city, and the birds of the air shall eat whoever dies in the field.”
25 But there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do wickedness in the sight of the Lord, because Jezebel his wife stirred him up.
26 And he behaved very abominably in following idols, according to all that the Amorites had done, whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.
27 So it was, when Ahab heard those words, that he tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his body, and fasted and lay in sackcloth, and went about mourning.
28 And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,
29 “See how Ahab has humbled himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the calamity in his days. In the days of his son I will bring the calamity on his house.”
God was not really amazed by the tearing of his garments or by the putting on his sacloth,
What really got him was Ahab contrition through fasting.
This is the guy that just murdered a guy for food. He killed him so he could get his vineyard and make it a vegetable garden.
This Evil man found mercy and favor because he humbled himself and sought God in Fasting and prayer.
How much more we when we humble our self and seek God through fasting and prayer. Will not God hear us.
1 Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.
2 As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
3 Then, having fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them away.
4 So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.
The Holy Spirit Spoke as they were in fasting and prayer and gave direction to the desciples
Moses Was on mount sinai fasting and praying fourty days And God spoke to him
Elijah fasted 40 days and 40 nights and in the Mountain of God he heard that still small voice.
You need God to speak to you, give you direction, speak to your situation.This is the time to do it.
Concluding Prayer
Lord prepare my heart to seek You. To seek you with all my heart and my soul.
To separate myself from the filth of the world inorder to seek your face.