Seeking the Lord: A Call to wholehearted Pursuit

Isaiah 55:6 says, “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near.” It is a powerful passage urging each of us to seek the Lord in a spirit of desperation. No one is exempt from the need to seek God, although regrettably, not everyone will choose to do so.

Seeking the Lord

When it comes to a call to seek the Lord, we often find ourselves in one of two roles: either participants actively seeking God or observers watching others seek Him. Those who seek God approach Him with worship, praise, intercession, petition, and confession. Their lives are marked by doing so seriously, passionately, humbly, and desperately. But some merely observe, restrained by fear of judgment, fear of what the Lord would ask and the potential life changes it would mean, or the assumption that there's always tomorrow and someday they will seek HIm.

Some may even ask, “If God is always present, why do I need to seek Him?” Herein lies our need to understand the constant but not always perceived presence of God.

Understanding God's Presence

While God is omnipresent, there are seasons we neglect Him. The result is we become less aware of His presence. He is always near and always present, but we can become spiritually dull and insensitive to His presence. The Bible gives us a great counter to this in Psalm 105:4 "Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always..”

Seeking cannot be a one-time event but must be a continual process. The Hebrew word for seek is the idea of repeatedly reading and studying. The picture is “beating a path” to God, consistently going to Him and His Word. In doing so, we tread the ground over and over, leaving an impression on everything in our lives.

Psalm 34:10 is a great promise for us when we seek Him with this diligence and passion. It says those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. What a promise! This should prompt us to ask: What are these good things?

Good things promised to those who seek the Lord

We Don’t Need to Worry:

In Matthew 6:31-34, we are reminded not to worry about mundane concerns but to prioritize seeking God's kingdom and righteousness. He knows our needs and will divinely meet us in those places when we our main pursuit is Him and His Kingdom!

We Are Delivered from Our Fears:

Seeking the Lord delivers us from fears (Psalm 34:4). The verse tells us that in seeking God, we discover a source of comfort, courage, and deliverance. By turning our hearts and minds towards Him, we find solace, and our fears are replaced with the reassurance of His unending love. Seeking God becomes a powerful antidote to the anxieties that can often grip our hearts, allowing us to navigate life with strength and peace.

He Will Be Found:

Jeremiah 29:13 says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Even in the depths of our hardest challenges, God is not distant or indifferent. Seek Him earnestly, with the simple belief that He promises to be found by those who diligently pursue Him. He is not elusive, but a faithful presence waiting to be discovered by us.

Wholehearted seeking is making Jesus our top priority. Picture the time management lesson with the jar, rocks, and sand – the key is to prioritize the big rocks, then the small rocks and sand will naturally fall into place. Jesus is the big rock! He is the significant, foundational rock that deserves our priority. Place Him in the jar of your life first and everything else will naturally fall into place. It is a wonderful promise!

The Urgency of Now:

The call of Isaiah 55:6 to seek the Lord is one of urgency. We are told to seek Him "while He may be found" and call upon Him "while He is near." Respond promptly when God speaks to our hearts! 2 Corinthians 6:2 reinforces this urgency with "NOW is the acceptable time; NOW is the day of salvation," and Hebrews 3:15 warns, "Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart." We are not promised tomorrow. We are not guaranteed the rest of the day.

If you are reading this, I know God is calling on you to seek Him! The call to seek the Lord is a timeless call but also a timely call. May the urgency of seeking the Lord resonate in your heart today.

Reach out to us if you are ready to answer that call!

New Life Church: Jubilee Year of Supernatural Provision, Growth, and Trusting in God

We are fully stepping into our Jubilee year at New Life Church! As we bid farewell to 2023 and embrace the opportunities of the new year, the excitement within our church community is growing. This year, we celebrate a monumental milestone – our 50th year as a church! Brace yourselves for a year filled with supernatural provision, freedom, restoration, and victories over every challenge or assault thrown our way. There is much for us to celebrate and there is much for us to anticipate!

Baptism Explosion and Contagious Passion:

In 2023, we were blessed to witness almost 30 baptisms! There is a Jesus-passion explosion within our church. The contagious hunger to know and love Him more has ignited zeal for the Lord. I am sure you have felt it too. We are seeing measurable growth and influence and our church is truly becoming a beacon, drawing in precious people from all walks of life. We are encountering Jesus’ presence and love in life-changing ways together.

Building the Future: A Pressing Need in our Jubilee Vision:

Our vision to Build the Future is not merely a good idea; it's a pressing need. The growth in our student ministries has been substantial. We recently had to transform our conference room into a classroom. The number of Jr. High students has nearly doubled in number, and we need separate spaces for Jr. High and Sr. High. We are literally hitting the limits of our facilities. But this is a good problem to have! God's guidance, spoken through you and our elders two years ago, prepared us for this very moment. You can read about it here. We're now halfway to our one million dollar goal, and as we continue on in our Jubilee year, we CHOOSE to trust God’s leading, believing the other half will come through His miraculous provision.

The Power of Choices: Trusting in God's Provision:

Our choices hold immense power, a principle consistently emphasized in the Bible. Prioritizing God and trusting Him has tremendous impact on our well-being. Jesus' teachings remind us not to worry about life's needs but to seek God first, trusting that He will provide. (Matthew 6.33-34) As we trust God and express our trust in Him through giving our time, tithe, and talents, we become a source of blessing for others. As we sacrificially give to Build the Future, we bless future generations of New Life. Let’s choose to grow in this throughout the year, operating in an elevated level of faith and trust in God.

As we step into 2024, let's embrace the Jubilee year with anticipation and trust in God's richest blessings over our homes and families. Together, we are building a future marked by supernatural provision, growth, and an unwavering trust in the One who knows our needs. Here's to a year of jubilant victories and continued faithfulness!

Pastor Joshua J. Ellis
New Life Church

WHAT TO MAKE OF ALL THE TROUBLE

These are strange times; unlike any I have seen in my lifetime. There are so many uncertainties and we seem to be focused on all the trouble. There is political trouble. Marital and family troubles. Church troubles and trouble within our own souls. In Matthew 6.22, Jesus tells us the eye is the entrance to your heart and mind.

Focus on trouble and you will be troubled

Not that we are to be blind to trouble. We are to be aware of trouble. Jesus was careful to explain to His disciples the trouble that would come with the end. In Matthew 24, He said there would be wars and rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes, and this would be just the beginning. They should expect to be tortured, killed, and hated by all nations. False prophets would arise and there would be mass deception.

Jesus said these troubles were to function as a sign to them (and us) that God is up to something much bigger! They were to be a signpost to the deeper work of God in our midst.

Matthew 24.30 “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. 31 And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.” (NIV)

Similarly, the apostle Paul was aware of his troubles. In 2 Corinthians 11, he has a long list of troubles he has endured. He was constantly in danger. To top it off, in chapter 12, he speaks of a thorn in his flesh that he prayed three times would be removed. That trouble, however, was not his focus. All that trouble, he learned, was to point him to a much bigger and deeper work that God was doing in Paul.

In 2 Corinthians 12.9 he writes, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (NIV)

God at work in our trouble

The deeper work of God happening in Paul is that God was teaching Paul about His sufficient grace. His troubles were but a signpost directing Paul to great trust in God’s strength when he felt weak.

When we see trouble, don’t focus on trouble. Ask, “What deeper thing is God doing? Towards what might this trouble be pointing me?”

I have found in the midst of our national troubles, God is redirecting the focus of many in His Church. I would love to hear your comments on what redirecting you may have discerned. Please post and share.