Wholly After God

For thus says the LORD, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: "I am the LORD, and there is no other. ¹⁹ I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth; I did not say to the seed of Jacob, 'Seek Me in vain'; I, the LORD, speak righteousness, I declare things that are right…" Isaiah 45:18-19

Since the times of old, we see God requiring His people to seek Him diligently. Since He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8), He still wants us to seek Him today. The amazing thing with God is that He always attached a promise/reward to seeking Him, and in our opening text we see Him reminding the children of Israel that He has never told them to seek Him in vain. This is the great deception of the devil and the world, that seeking God is usually in vain. This is why to many, seeking God is not a priority. Why do people spend hundreds of thousands of shillings, of not millions, taking children through school, all the way to the university level? If it became apparent today that education is a vain pursuit, would anyone invest even a shilling into it? I don’t think so. People invest in education as there is a promise of reward (in terms of employment, skills, knowledge etc.), which is why you’ll see some parents even getting in debt and some sacrificing happiness, sleep, energy and some even food, to get their children to school. The children themselves sacrifice a lot of energy, time and resources, towards education.

Similarly, if we today got convinced of the importance of seeking God, I am sure that we would be more diligent at doing it, than we are. The devil and the world, by deceiving us into seeing as if seeking God is in vain, has gotten us to either not seek God at all, or do it as a “side-hustle”. For some, God comes as the last resort, and seeking God is optional, if and when they have time. This is not what the Bible tells us it should be:

Jeremiah 29:11-13 (AMP)

For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome. ¹² Then you will call upon Me, and you will come and pray to Me, and I will hear and heed you. ¹³ Then you will seek Me, inquire for, and require Me [as a vital necessity] and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. Emphasis added

God makes it clear that He has plans for welfare and peace for us, to give us hope in our final outcome, for us. We get this when we call upon Him, seek Him with all our hearts. The description in verse 13 of ‘seeking’ does not merely translate to talking to God once in a while, or having a casual friendship with Him. It talks of seeking, inquiring for and requiring God as a vital necessity. Surely all of us know how to seek something that is of vital necessity to us. We all know of the three human basic needs (food, shelter, clothing), according to psychology and education. According to the Bible, actually it’s food and clothing (Matt. 6:25-34, 1 Tim. 6:8). Anyway, the point is, we all know how to look for food and clothing. Isn’t that why some of us wake up at wee hours of the morning, and go to bed late? Besides food and clothing, there are other things we have put as vital to us. For example, some ladies have put beauty as a vital necessity, for some guys it’s something like status. What cuts across as a vital need for women is love, and for men it is respect (Eph. 5:32). To what lengths will a lady go to, to look beautiful, or find love? To what lengths will a guy go to, to get status, or respect? I’ll let you answer that, out of experience.

Now that we have an idea of what it means to seek something as a vital necessity, that’s how we should be seeking God, on a daily basis. It is not half-heartedly (shingo upande), or even reluctantly. It should be with all our hearts. Jesus later told us to love God with all our hearts, souls, minds and strengths (Mk. 12:30). Now let me make it clear that this is never by our own strength. The Bible tells us that it’s not by might, not by power, but by the Spirit of God (Zech. 4:6). It is the Spirit of God Himself Who enables us to seek God with all we have, as a vital necessity. So, what’s our part to play?

2 Timothy 1:12

For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.

Our part, like Paul, is to be committed, or to commit ourselves to seeking God. This is basically purposing in our hearts to see Him, or setting and fixing our hearts to do it, as the Bible tells us:

1 Chronicles 22:19

"Now set your heart and your soul to seek the LORD your God…”

2 Chronicles 11:16

And after the Levites left, those from all the tribes of Israel, such as set their heart to seek the LORD God of Israel, came to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the LORD God of their fathers.

When I think of the words “set your heart”, I see someone directing their hearts towards a certain direction, and fixing it there. Once you’ve set your heart (committed) to seek God, His grace flows, to help you do it, diligently. Setting our hearts to seek God does not mean that our hearts will remain in that state. As someone noted, the Bible requires us to present ourselves as living sacrifices (Rom. 12:1), and the problem is that living sacrifices tend to crawl off the altar, once in a while. This means that we have to fight to keep our hearts set on seeking God, set on Him. Daily, many distractions come, to try take our hearts from the position set, on seeking after God. At the same time, God keeps presenting us with much to help us keep setting our hearts on seeking Him. It takes the help of the Holy Spirit to know what to take, and what to leave, and how to take what’s good to help us seek God more.

God would never ask us to do something He hasn’t done Himself, or doesn’t do. That said, He’d never ask us set our hearts on Him and on seeking Him, if He hasn’t done so Himself:

Job 7:17

What is man, that You should exalt him, that You should set Your heart on him…

What would happen in a relationship where a lady has set her heart to love a man, whereas the man’s heart is set elsewhere, and not on the lady? The relationship becomes push-and-pull, the guy feeling like the lady is asking too much from him, and the lady feeling strained. Compare that with a relationship where both the lady and the guy have their hearts set on each other alone; happiness flows, and a healthy relationship is inevitable. God has already set His heart on us, and would do anything to pursue us. He was never obligated to create man in the first place, yet out of love and a desire to fellowship with His own creation that responds to love got Him creating us. After man sinned, He could have done away with us, yet He kept following after man constantly, not allowing anything to stand between us and Him. Sin was the one thing standing between us and Him, and He took it upon Himself, on the cross, and gave us His own righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21). Clearly, God’s heart is set on us, and He is very serious about our relationship with Him. If we don’t respond by setting our hearts on Him, our relationship with Him becomes strained, where we feel like God is demanding too much from us, and the relationship seems like a push-and-pull relationship, where we feel like God is pushing and pulling us, and we are dragging our feet half-heartedly after Him. I want you to see that seeking God as a vital necessity, with all your heart, is good for you and for your relationship with God.

God created us all, black or white or brown, to seek Him:

Acts 17:26-28

And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, ²⁷ "so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; ²⁸ "for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also His offspring.'"

God is not telling us to search for Him, as we search for something we can’t find; He’s telling us to seek Him, though He’s not already far from us. He’s already made huge strides towards us, and when we set our hearts to seek Him, we realise that He wasn’t far from us all along! Once we start seeking Him diligently, He reveals Himself to us so much that we realise that He desires for us to find Him more than we desire to seek Him.

At the end, God is not saying that we seek Him, and we’ll be left desolate, regretting why we sought Him in the first place, losing everything. This is why, according to our opening text, He was saying that He didn’t tell the seed of Jacob to seek Him in vain. Jesus also says:

Matthew 6:33

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

I am not saying that we seek God because of the rewards and benefits. Our main motivation for seeking God is His love for us, and love for Him (1 John 4:19). So, what is the place of reward, in our seeking for God? Rewards of seeking God are only to help us be assured that as what we are doing is not in vain. If we seek God for the rewards we get, we are setting ourselves up for a fall, as we’ll be seeking His hand, not His heart. Those who seek God’s hand have it all wrong, like a guy going after a lady for what he can get from her (sex, housekeeping, babies etc.), or someone seeking to befriend you because of what they can get from you (money, stuff etc.) These relationships don’t last long, compared to those based on pure love and a desire to know the other person’s heart. When we seek God’s heart, all other rewards will come, but these rewards shouldn’t be our motivation for seeking Him; love should. Whose love? His love. We love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). Again, this is not something we struggle to do. Once we surrender to God and set our hearts to seek Him, He gives us a revelation of His love for us that’s so great that we just can’t help it but love Him back, and go after Him with all we have.

Recently while doing evangelism we came across this lady who told us that she wasn’t saved, but she’s been thinking of giving her life to Christ for a while now. She said she really desires to get saved. I felt led to ask her what was stopping her from doing it. She said that she’s afraid because she doesn’t have that desire to study the Word and pray, so she’s basically afraid that her relationship with God won’t last long, as she knew she needed to be in the Word and prayer, for her to remain spiritually strong. To this, we told her that the desire to study the Word and prayer were things that come from God, not from herself, that her role would be just to surrender to God, and He does the rest of the work. This is what the Bible says:

Philippians 2:12b-13

… work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; ¹³ for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. (Emphasis added)

Much emphasis has been added to the first part of this text, and not to the last; more emphasis on our part, less emphasis on God’s part. This explains why this lady could have thought that it was up to her to maintain her relationship with God. As we work out our salvation, God works in us to make us willing to do His good pleasure. So, who does most of the work? God does! He also says:

Philippians 1:6

…being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ…

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁴ He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it. (Emphasis added)

Jude 24-25

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, ²⁵ To God our Savior, Who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.

Again, our part is to set our hearts to seek God with all we have, and He works in us to make us be more willing to do it, and also works to help us find Him. Our part is surrender.

To remain surrendered, we have to keep fighting off some hindrances to our seeking God, by His grace and Word, and wisdom of the Holy Spirit (discernment). Some of these hindrances are:

• Busyness, where we don’t have time for God. As someone said, if we’re too busy for God, we’re busier than God intended for us to be.

• Laziness and procrastination, where we become lazy when it comes to the things of God. These two go hand in hand. Once we’ve set our hearts to seek God, the Spirit will tell us of things to do (fast, pray, study the Word, attend fellowships, put aside things fighting for our attention and time, e.g. things of the world); when He does, we ought to do them immediately, or else we’ll procrastinate and eventually end up not seeking God at all.

• Carnality. This is where we are led by feelings and emotions and our five senses, and not by faith. Seeking God requires faith, which is why God said, “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.” Heb. 11:6. This means that we won’t feel like seeking God sometimes, but since we walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7) or feelings, we’ll do it because we understand that He is a vital necessity to us, that we need Him. If we all worked or went to school because we felt like it, very few of us would be still employed, or even educated. We did these things because we knew we needed to, and at the end they turned out for our good. Spiritual maturity is doing what needs to be done at all times, regardless of the situations or even feelings (Heb. 5:13-14). I’m sure Jesus wasn’t feeling excited and having goose bumps, on the way to the cross, evidenced by the experience in the garden of Gethsemane (Lk. 22:40-46), yet He went through with it because He knew it was what was right (what God wanted done). Paul also didn’t feel like it and all excited going through all the things he went through, listed in 2 Corinthians 11:24-28. Yet he did it all, and from prison wrote to us to rejoice in the Lord always (Phil. 4:4). Did they have more of God’s Spirit and power than we do? No, as God doesn’t give His Spirit by measure (Jn. 3:34), and we all have joy, peace, longsuffering, faith and temperance as fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23 KJV). These and many others went past their feelings and reasoning, found out what God wanted and did it, and the grace of God was sufficient. Always find out what God wants you to do and do it, regardless of the situation or what you feel, and you’ll find out God’s grace kicking in, sufficient to carry you through. What God wants you to do is what is best for you, and you won’t find happiness or joy anywhere else, than in God’s will.

• Fear, worry, anxiety. Many are hindered from seeking God because they’re afraid of what people will say, or that they’ll miss out on this or that, or lose much. Again, God tells us that He didn’t tell us to seek Him in vain, and that He didn’t give us the spirit of fear, but of love, power and a sound mind (2 Tim. 1:7). When fear knocks on the door, kick it out by reminding yourself of God’s promises and love for you, and His faithfulness (2 Tim. 2:13). Strengthen yourself in the Lord, and do what is right, as David did (1 Sam. 30:1-9). Fear of men will also hinder, which explains why many unbelievers don’t know God. Many are afraid of what people will say when they accept Christ. The Bible says that the fear of man brings a snare, but those who trust in the Lord shall be safe (Prov. 29:25). A snare is mtego in Swahili, and is basically you being trapped in something you’re not supposed to be in, and what’s bad for you. God created you for a purpose, which as we’ve seen according to Jeremiah 29:11 is for your good, and if you fear man then you’ll be caught in a situation that you’re not supposed to be in, missing out on God’s best for you, heading for destruction (Jn. 3:16). Would you rather fear man and miss out on God’s best for you, what He created you for, striving to please people who are only concerned about themselves and won’t take you far, or trust God and seek Him, Who has all your future figured out?

• The world and its patterns, sin and the flesh. These are not for God, and will never be (Jas. 4:4, 1 Jn. 2:15-17, Rom. 8:8). You cannot seek God and the things of the world, at the same time. You cannot serve God and sin. There is no balance between light and darkness (2 Cor. 6:14-18). For you to be transformed by the renewing of the mind, and know and prove the will of God, you have to refuse to be conformed to the patterns of the world (Rom. 12:1-2), and abhor evil (Rom. 12:9). You have to flee youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on God out of a pure heart (2 Tim. 2:22). Have you decided to follow Jesus, and Him alone? Be prepared to deny yourself, desires of the flesh, self-will and so on; be prepared to die daily (Lk. 9:23-26, 1 Cor. 15:31, Gal. 5:16-17,24-25). If you’ve decided to follow Jesus, follow Him whole-heartedly, with no turning back or looking to the sides.

There are many other hindrances, which I’m sure if you seek God He’ll reveal to you (e.g. pride, self-centeredness, unforgiveness, self-righteousness, greed, condemnation/guilt, complacency etc.). He said that it’s He who searches the heart of man, and tests the mind (Jer. 17:9-10). He knows best if you're seeking Him as a vital necessity, and also knows your hindrances or those things which are slowing you down from your walk with God, from seeking Him. Surrender to Him and let Him reveal these things to you, also helping you know how to overcome them.

Only those who seek God with a pure heart see God (Matt. 5:8). This doesn’t just mean seeing God on the final day in heaven, but also on a daily basis. If you’re seeking God for rewards, or any other reason apart from just needing Him and loving Him, then you won’t see/find Him. When you surrender to God and let Him purify your heart and take away all other ill and wrong motives, and let Him help you love Him, you’ll start seeking Him out of a pure heart, and thus find Him, seeing Him reveal Himself to you all the more. Why do you seek God?

Always keep in mind that it’s not you doing the works, but He, in and through you. Yours is to set your heart to seek God, and fight to keep it set, obeying the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Grace and peace to you!

    Sam Gitonga

Sunday Service Teaching, Transformation Ministry, Ruiru. 


Brother Sam is the Youth Leader at Teaching Transformation Ministry. We are located along the Thika-Ruai Flyover Junction (at the Thika Rd./ Bypass intersection), Next to Eastgate Restaurant.