Transcript:

Hello, this is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective.

“Seeking God” is one of those bottom-line imperatives of the Bible. We are called to “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness.” We are to be like King David who cried out:

One thing have I asked 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 gaze upon the beauty of the Lord

   and to inquire in his temple. (Psalm 27:4)

But how exactly do we do that? Well, we get a clue in the Old Testament book of 2 Chronicles. The kings and the people of Judah were continually failing to seek God, and repeatedly there was one critical element that correlated with that failure. They failed to seek God, because they failed to treasure His Word—God’s Law.

So, for example, in 2 Chronicles 12:14 we are told that King Rehoboam “did evil, because he did not set his heart to seek the Lord.” Note carefully: why did he do evil? “BECAUSE he did not set his heart to seek the Lord.”

And how exactly did he fail to do this? Well, just a few verses earlier, the chronicler tells us that he failed because he had previously neglected God’s Word, His Law. Listen:

“When the kingdom of Rehoboam was established and strong, he and all Israel with him abandoned the Law of the Lord….” (2 Chronicles 12:1)

Note carefully, abandoning of the Law of the Lord is equated with abandoning God Himself.

Now, if you think about it, this only makes sense. How do you seek to be in relationship with anyone? Well, first of all, you must listen and take seriously what they say. If you want to be in relationship with God, then you must take seriously what He says. You cannot seek God, if you do not seek His Word. To reject his Word is to reject Him.

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

2 Chronicles 12 (NASB)

1 When the kingdom of Rehoboam was established and strong, he and all Israel with him abandoned the Law of the Lord….

13 So King Rehoboam became powerful in Jerusalem and reigned there. For Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord had chosen from all the tribes of Israel, to put His name there. And his mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonitess. 14 But he did evil because he did not set his heart to seek the Lord.