Getting Serious with God

In Malachi, we hear God saying his word, return to me and I will return to you. I believe God gets serious with those who get serious with him, friends. Let me ask you a question.

If you really got serious with God, would he just ignore you? If you were sincere and hard and really hungered for him, do you think he would keep his back to you? If your little child wanted to be more pleasing to you, and she made you a little tea party to please you and to spend time with you, would you turn your back on her and reject her? I don't believe you would. I believe God wants us to know him more and to experience more him, so we can be more useful to him. But he won't honor a divided heart.

He won't acknowledge half-hearted prayer. He won't accept a half-hearted commitment. He won't move one skinny inch if we are not sincere in heart.

But if we are all those things, he will move heaven and earth to bring us into a more intimacy with him, to experience more of him and to be transformed by him into a more dependable vessel for his use and for his glory. I believe we can experience as much of God as we want to and have a walk with him like few men do if we really want to. But there's a price to be paid.

And it's here where the rubber meets the road for what counts costs and what cost counts. Years ago, I had a deep desire for God to make me a man of faith. I set aside four days where I rose extra early in the morning to have time to search the scriptures and bear my heart to him.

Over those four days, I camped out on a verse of scripture in Colossians 1.10, which reads, That you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. As I meditated over that text, I asked God to reveal to me what he meant by those words from his perspective and then to apply them to my heart to make them a reality in my life for the next four days. I got really serious with God, rising two hours extra early every morning to be in prayer and reflection on God's word from Colossians 1.10. I needed to hear from God.

I was serious with God. I was seeking a deeper knowledge of God and a deeper experience of him. For those four days, I seemed to live in a different atmosphere than other men.

My thoughts, my desires were engulfed with eternity as God brought me into a personal revival and spoke to my heart in response to my seeking of him. I had climbed up to a higher altitude where the air is more rarefied, but there was a cost and sacrifice attached to that ascent where the air is purer and the view more exhilarating. It was the beginning of a long journey with God that would engulf the next seven years of my life, which that to get to the top of that mountain would entail a difficult climb fraught with rocky and foreboding cliffs, which dissuade many a traveler from continuing the attempt.

Eventually, it all would lead to a path of brokenness that led smack dab into a cross. God spoke to my heart over those four days of burdened, desperate prayer and a searching of his word and will for my life. He broke his verse of scripture down for me in layers and applied each part to my heart first that you might walk worthy of the Lord.

God gave me his companion verse of Philippians 3.10 and he said if I wanted to walk worthy of the Lord, I would have to do it in the fellowship of his sufferings. I agreed to this. Each time God gave me his response to my searching, I had agreed to the conditions.

He was testing my sincerity. The next day, he gave me the next part of the verse of Colossians 1.10, which read unto all pleasing. God gave me his companion verse of Hebrews 11.6, but without faith, it is impossible to please him.

God conveyed to me I would be placed in circumstances ahead of me, which would try me and build faith in me. I agreed with this condition. Next, the next day, the words being fruitful in every good work, God gave me his companion verse of Zechariah 4.6, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.

God spoke very plainly to me in the quiet place of my heart that early morning, the following words, my spirit must be in complete control at all times through your surrendered life. I agreed to those conditions. Then on day four of my searching, the last sentence of Colossians 1.10 read, an increasing in the knowledge of God.

Oh, how desperately I hungered for that. I hungered to know God more. This was real meat to me.

God gave me his companion verse of Jeremiah 33.3, which states, call upon me and I will answer thee and show thee great mighty things, which thou knowest not. God told me, trust me and you will experience more of me through the fulfilled promises I have revealed to thee. Oh, well, prior to all this, for years, God had given me some very specific promises out of his holy word that pertained especially to me.

He was to bring me through certain circumstances, which would build faith in me, but I had to trust him. I agreed to this as well. Little did I know at the time, friends, the trials and adversities and suffering I would have to pass under for these promises of Colossians 1.10 to become a reality in my life.

But through it all, I have learned that God is faithful in answering our heart's desire for him. He will give us the necessary grace for each adversity. God doesn't do his deepest work under sunny skies and pleasant circumstances, but beneath storm-tossed seas, he builds a servant of his in the hard places.

King David's familiarity with God was built while he was hunted like a flea among the rocks hotly pursued by the armies of Saul. Joseph had to be cast into a pit in a prison before he could be released and exalted. God has his specific means and methods for dealing individually with each of his children.

Some children are more compliant than others and learn the lesson earlier and easier, while other children are more stubborn, self-willed, and thick-skulled and need more time and investment. While I was more stubborn, more thick-skulled, and more self-willed, and I needed more time and more of his investment, but he gave me the grace to persevere. I once asked a minister on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland who knew Duncan Campbell well to describe him to me in one sentence.

The man thought about it, and then he finally said, Duncan Campbell was an ordinary man who had had an extraordinary experience of God. I can relate to that personally, for God is looking for ordinary men who want to have an extraordinary experience of Him. How about you, friend? Are you up to the challenge?