In Psalm 27:8 the psalmist writes “When You said, ‘Seek My face,’ My heart said to You, ‘Your face, LORD, I will seek.’” Many times in Scripture the Lord commands us to either “seek his face,” pursue after knowledge of him, or follow him. The psalmist is giving us a picture of his response to the Lord. It reveals that the psalmist had an innate desire to submit himself to the call of God to pursue after him. One of the greatest temptations for the believer is to treat Christianity selfishly. What I mean here is that it can be easy for us to love or follow God because of the benefits it brings (e.g., escape from eternal Hell, strength in times of sorrow, power over evil, wisdom in times of need, etc.). Certainly, all these things are given to us by way of blessings when we are in union with Christ, but the psalmist isn’t focused on any of those earthly things. He is more concerned with knowing God as a person.

 

Here is an interesting question for the church: if we took away the pews, the nice facilities, the air conditioning/heating, the music, etc. would God’s Word still be enough for you to willfully gather together and worship? For the individual I would ask: if God took away your job, money, financial security, family, friends, home, car, possessions, etc. would God and his Word be enough for you? Could you still be satisfied with God? The verse above reveals that God wants us to desire him above all else. This is not just mere knowledge about God. God is a person and we are designed in his image for the purpose of being able to relate to him and know him.

 

There are two common mistakes people make when they try to know God more. The first mistake is to treat God like he is a doctrine instead of a person. Yes, we should study what the Bible says about God (that’s called theology). But this theology should tell us about the person. God is a person, like you are a person. He wants you to know him and pursue him (“seek his face”) on a relational level. He is not an object to be prized or used, he is a holy person who thinks, feels, values, and chooses. He is awesome and mighty, yet he is personal and intimate. The second common mistake is to treat God subjectively. What I mean here is that people create an image of who they think God should be and then they pursue after or worship that false idea of God. This is detrimental to one’s relationship with the true God. A quote from our devotional this week states, “In a race, running fast is a bad idea if you’re headed in the wrong direction.” Having an improper view of God will lead to drastic consequences in your sanctification, obedience, commitments, etc.

 

Finally, your view of God can be hindered by what I will call a cluttered heart. I will not address the sin issue in this particular blog post, but needless to say, living in unrepentant sin will also hinder your view of God. But by a cluttered heart I mean things that we love and invest our time and life into that become a distraction to our thinking about and pursuing after God. We all have fears, concerns, obligations, responsibilities, loves, goals, etc. that we set our hearts upon and we invest our daily time into. But how much of your daily time do you spend in fellowship with God? I think the struggle for most Christians is to not simply relegate God to a half-hour time frame each day. We have a tendency to give God a small amount of time a day, but then treat the rest of day is if it belongs to us. But fellowship with an omnipresent God means that we have communion with him throughout our day. Your daily life should submit to your relationship with God, not the other way around.

 

I encourage you to seek after God. He has invited you to know him and have fellowship with him. If you find God is boring or unappealing you might try changing your perspective on who God is because the true and living God is anything but boring and dull. Seek his face and know him. As Jesus promised, “Seek and you will find, ask and it shall be given to you, knock and it shall be opened to you.” God has not hidden himself; he wants to be found and known.