Not only does God want you to find Him, He wants you to get to KNOW Him!
You owe it to yourself to find God, precious one, because once you find God, you’ll begin to understand what life is really all about.
Furthermore - you’ll never be truly happy . . . until you find God.
God reveals His reality to people in many different ways, but there is ONE way that God desires we seek Him above all others in our pursuit to find Him. I’ll be sharing which way that is below.
However … it is only fair that I first ask you a very, very important question. It is also very important that you answer this question honestly. Otherwise … you may be hindered in your effort to find God.
What if God asks you to be one of His closest friends? Will that delight you, or will it scare you? If the thought of it scares you, PLEASE don’t let it. God is looking for people who are HONEST, and who will allow Him to become their closest friend.
I just shared a key insight with you that you must never forget about God. God does not delight making friends with people who are dishonest. Dishonest people are people God cannot trust. Do YOU want a God who is dishonest, or do you want a God you can trust? The answer should be obvious: “I want a God I can trust!”
Do you have a close friend? If you do, I’ll bet the number one reason that person is your closest friend is because you can trust him or her. We don’t keep friends around for very long when we can’t trust them, do we? Should we expect anything less of God? The most fulfilling friendship is a friendship built on honesty.
Are you married? Do you desire your mate to be totally honest with you? Sure you do. Your mate wants the same thing. Your mate wants you to never lie. No marriage will ever be all it could be when one or both persons in that marriage lie to the other. The most fulfilling marriage is a relationship built on honesty.
Should it surprise us then that God is extremely reluctant to have any meaningful relationship with a person who is dishonest?
Dishonesty is lying, and lying is actually a form of betrayal. A person who doesn’t mind betraying another will betray God just as quickly, and because God knows each of our capacity to betray another if the right circumstances would seem to justify it … God will remain distant; it will be difficult for us to properly connect with Him.
Those who have no objections to lying are those who are the most vulnerable to being conned – being deceived. Were you aware of that? On the other hand, those who strive to be honest at all costs are the most difficult to lie to, because God enables them to sense the lie, sometimes as quickly as it is even being told.
A person who has no objections to lying is a person who has a serious major character flaw. That major character flaw is selfishness. Selfishness will do just about anything it must to get its way, even if it has to lie, but the one thing selfishness will not obtain for us is close friendship with God. When we are selfish, we place a barrier between ourselves and God, and sadly, may not even realize the harm it is doing - the hindrance it is causing - in our pursuit of God.
Honest people are those God delights in revealing Himself to the most. The more we strive to be honest, the easier it becomes to connect to God.
The greatest reason God remains such a mystery in this life to so many is because they have never understood that God’s name is not only Truth, they also are not aware that God IS Truth. In fact, God is the personification of Truth. When you ARE Truth, which God IS, should it really be any great surprise to us that God so much hates liars – hates dishonesty – hates betrayers who will betray to have their own selfish way … that He simply will have little to do with them?
Lord - help me to know what TRUTH is
You can pray and pray and pray to God, and it will be like talking to yourself, because in most cases your prayers will be ignored by God, if you are praying every prayer under the sun but this prayer: “God – please reveal to me how to find Truth. I truly want to know what Truth is. I want to know who Truth is."
It is for this very reason that making the most money one can make in this life with no regard to how it might adversely affect others, let alone ourselves, becomes a “substitute God” without one even realizing, let alone caring. Addiction to sexual and personal pleasure at almost any cost, entertainment, fame, power, revenge … that which we desire the most becomes a “substitute God” and we can live and die without even realizing it.
Truth is not found in sexual bliss. Truth is not found in personal pleasure of any kind. Truth is not found in education. Truth is not found in having a lot of money, nor more money than everyone else. Truth is not being the most famous, nor being the most powerful. Truth is ONLY found when you crave more than anything else to have a meaningful relationship with Truth. This might sound a little "far fetched" to you, but please keep reading.
Knowing ABOUT God will never alone satisfy the person who places honesty above all other character traits a person can have. Experiencing God is the only thing that truly satisfies. One can never fully experience God until one is willing to base the friendship on honesty. In fact, God won’t allow it to be based on anything else.
Not only is God Truth personified, God is also Love personified. Loving someone can only be the most satisfying – the most fulfilling - when that love-relationship is built on the foundation of honesty. Trying to find God and connect with God to know you are truly loved by God is not obtainable, dear one, unless you are willing to surrender your option to lie - your option to be dishonest - should it seem to suit your selfish purpose.
You can know about God, but never really get to KNOW God, if you are willing to have an affair with dishonesty later on in your relationship with God. You would never enter into a relationship of any meaningful substance if you knew the person you are having it with has the capacity to be dishonest. God won’t either. God will tolerate a lot of our human character flaws, but the one thing that will drive Him away from us the quickest is the character flaw of dishonesty.
There is a passage in the Bible that many who are aware of it have questioned what it fully means. It is found in Matthew 7:21-23. It reads:
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
“Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’
“And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice evil!'"
This is a most sobering thought: We can do things, believing we are pleasing God, and be totally deceived. We must know what evil is and what evil is not to remain free from practicing evil. We should consider well WHO it was who gave the red-letter warning above.
Is being dishonest evil? Is betraying someone's trust evil, or is it okay? One has to lie in one way or another to betray someone. Lying is one of the most deceitful means of betrayal one can practice, because it fosters distrust.
Perhaps this is best understood in a marriage relationship with someone you love. You enter that marriage believing that person can be trusted to not lie to you. Yet if that person ends up lying to you, you begin to question your mate’s honesty, correct? Especially if your mate has given his or her affections to another person! ‘If my mate tells one lie, what will stop him/her from telling another lie?’ You have doubts, in other words, of just what kind of person you married afterall.
Say your spouse promises never to lie to you again. You have forgiven your spouse for lying to you the first time, and now trust it will never happen again. Yet down the road, sadly, let’s say it DOES happen again. From that point on, your relationship will NEVER be as good as it could have been, simply because now your trust in your spouse has for all practical purposes, been shattered. Your spouse has now committed the offense of practicing lying. Now you have a much more painful dilemma on your hands than the first time he or she lied, don’t you? What now will keep your spouse from continuing this practice of lying in the future to obtain selfish gain of some kind?
Only one thing. Your spouse’s determination to be honest with you from then on out. Talk will be cheap after that. Actions are what you’ll be monitoring from then on.
If you are willing to be dishonest with a friend, chances are excellent you’ll do the same with God. If you are willing to be dishonest with your employer, chances are excellent you’ll do the same with God. If you are willing to be dishonest with your spouse, chances are excellent you’ll do the same with God. You may not believe that’s the case, but if you do, you’re wrong, I’m sorry to have to say.
God Wants You To Be Totally HONEST With Him At All Times
If you are truly sincere about wanting to find God, what you need to do just as quickly as possible is to promise God that if He reveals Himself to you … you’ll promise Him you’ll be honest, and MEAN IT. If you don’t mean it, that means you’re a liar at heart, and He won’t waste His time with you.
Don’t take it personally -- He just refuses to have spiritual intimacy with dishonest people who lie. You wouldn’t, so why should He?
If you’re willing to have a loving, eternally meaningful relationship with God, prepare yourself to deal with Truth. Otherwise no matter what you try to do for God to get Him to like you enough to have intimate relationship with you, you’ll forever remain frustrated. He can create angels to have intimate relationship with that will be honest with Him. Why would He want a dishonest creation like you or me to have intimate relationship with?
Maybe you’ve never thought about it that much, but one of the main reasons you were placed on this planet was to be tested by God, in a number of different ways actually. There has never been any shortage of voices trying to tell us how to connect with God. But those who will end up finding God, and get connected and stay connected to God are those who will do everything necessary to zero in on ONE word in this statement below, and above all else, purposing to place it higher in priority than any other thing they place priority on in this life when building relationships:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
Care to guess which word I’m referring to in the above quote? I’m quite confident you know which word I'm referring to.
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