“So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Luke 11:9.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God says:
Seek and you shall find. Knock and it will be opened to you. What are you seeking? Where are you knocking? For everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to him who knocks, it will be opened. Luke 11:10, Matthew 7:8. You will end up with what you are seeking. Which can be good or bad. There is a way that seems right to a man that ends in death.
Today we continue our series on how to hear My voice with Life Lesson No. 8: Seek and Knock. To hear My voice you must seek Me and opportunities come to those who knock.
I tell you what your priorities for seeking should be and why. “The young lions do lack and suffer hunger; but they who seek the LORD shall not be in want of any good thing.” Psalm 34:10. So if you want a life filled with good things, it is time to seek Me while I still can be found. “I sought the LORD, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. They looked to Him and were radiant, and their faces will never be ashamed.” Psalm 34:4-5. I deliver you from fear and from shame a guilt, so if those are in your life, it is time to seek Me.
And I tell you not to worry and be spending your life just seeking provisions for the sustenance and maintenance of your flesh, “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” Matthew 6:33. And seeking has do with where you mind is set. “Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” Colossians 3:1-4.
If you are seeking good, I mean pure goodness with no taint of ill, you will be seeking Me and if you are seeking Me, you are seeking pure goodness. Good things come to those who seek Me, for I am love.
How do you seek Me? Daniel said he sought Me by prayer and petition and fasting. Daniel 9:3. Martha’s sister Mary sought Me by sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to His Words. David said he sought Me early and earnestly with joyful praise and meditation. Psalm 63:1-8. He inquired of Me for direction as did Joshua and Moses. But all of them really sought Me in the way I want you to seek Me, and that is from the heart. I see your heart.
When you seek Me with all your heart you will find Me right there with you. I reward those who diligently seek Me. You believe with your heart, so when you seek Me with your heart, you are seeking Me in faith and without faith it is impossible to please Me for to come to Me you must believe that I AM and that I reward those who seek Me. My righteous one shall live by faith. And that is the only way you will hear My voice and share My thoughts: when you seek Me by faith.
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.” Revelation 3:20. I knock, and I call out My Name, if you open the door, we dine together. I set a table before you in the sight of your foes, a banquet of rich food and sweet drinks, and My banner over you is love. How can the wedding guests fast so long as the groom is with them? The voice of the bridegroom. “The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice.” John 3:29.
Adam and Eve had perfect fellowship with Me, what ruined it and turned them away from Me so that they hid in fear of being exposed? I never tell you that Adam and I spent the evenings together in fellowship again. You never hear of any conversation between us in the Bible again. I had not changed. He did. He no longer sought Me. He hid from Me. Why? Very simple. He no longer agreed with Me. He had become disobedient to My Words of life. He chose death and his sin created a dividing wall between us that I could not cross and he did not return.
How can two walk together unless they agree? Why should you seek to be with one whom you do not honor or obey? Eli and his sons did not seek to hear My voice. I tell you that the Word of God was rare when Samuel came to serve in the tabernacle at Shiloh. But once I had one obedient heart there, I could again speak with man again. Abraham agreed with Me. He believed Me and I credited it to him as righteousness, which took down the barrier between us and made us in agreement again.
I had fellowship with Jacob but when he turned away from Me believing I had taken Joseph away from him, which I had not, he did not speak with Me for thirteen years. I had not changed. Joseph was alive and getting a place ready for him to survive the famine and live a life of luxury greater than he had ever known for the final years of his life but he did not honor Me with trust that I would work out things for him. He let himself live in grief and pain over a lie and turned his back to Me.
Too many are not seeking Me because they are living a lie that the father of lies trapped them in so they do his will, which is a grieving, destroyed, bitter life of defeat and pain, often over things that are not even true, like Adam, like Jacob, like Abraham for the thirteen years after Ishmael was born. Disobedience on your part without repentance cuts off hearing My voice. That happened with Saul also, the first king of Israel. And it is the way Solomon ended his life which had been so glorious when he had a heart that sought Me. When he first became king, he built me a glorious house of prayer, a temple of honor. I spoke with him in dreams and visions. But when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was no longer wholly devoted Me, as the heart of David his father had been. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites. Solomon did what was evil in My sight, and did not follow Me fully, as David his father had done. Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable idol of Moab, on the mountain which is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon. Thus also he did for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods. He no longer sought Me or wanted to hear My voice and it divided the glorious kingdom of Israel and destroyed what I had built with his father David. He opened the door to the devil to steal, kill and destroy. He had knocked at another door and it opened a floodgate of evil into his life, his family, and his kingdom.
Be careful what you are seeking and where you are knocking.
I tried to talk with Samson, but he kept disobeying Me. And it ruined his life. He spoke to Me again in the end and had a victory but not what would have been. I sent John the Baptist to Herod but though he was attracted by his words and his heart began to stir, he put that down and went into disobedience and murdered the one who would help him because of his pride and his lust. Later he was curious to see Jesus and tried to make him work a miracle before him but he could not hear His voice. My Son refused to speak to him knowing it would only make Herod’s final judgment worse for rejecting the Words of the Messiah Himself.
If you reject My Words and throw them behind your back, you will not hear My voice.
So what am I telling you? If you want to hear My voice you must obey My Word. You seek Me by loving and obeying My Words. I cannot entrust My secrets to those who betray Me, like Samson, like Adam. “Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.” John 2:23-25. David sang, “Who is the man who fears the LORD? He will instruct him in the way he should choose. His soul will abide in prosperity, and his descendants will inherit the land. The secret of the LORD is for those who fear Him, and He will make them know His covenant. My eyes are continually toward the LORD, for He will pluck my feet out of the net.” Psalm 25:12-15.
Jesus explained, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.” John 14:23-24. A heart that loves and seeks Me loves My Word, for I am My Word. You cannot know Me or seek Me apart from My Word. “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” John 14:21.
If you are living in continual sin and refuse to return to Me, eventually you will no longer hear from Me. Like Adam. Not that I am not calling and knocking, but you are not answering.
My prophet Samuel said, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Look, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.” 1 Samuel 15:22. The obedient are able to discern My voice.
You must speak to Me to hear from Me. But not as Herod spoke to Jesus, in unbelief, sarcasm, and rebellion, trying to make Me prove Myself to you, but as one who is seeking Me with your heart. The good and generous heart that is fertile ground for the seed of My Word.
I love you. To hear My voice you must seek and knock but in a particular way. You could call it the protocol of seeking. And the points of the protocol are faith, hope and love but they are all founded on obedience to My Word. And the greatest of these is love. And the one who loves Me obeys My Word. The obedience of faith. My Word is your very life. “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days.” Deuteronomy 30:19-20.