Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God.
Seeking after God
I. The occasion on which this injunction was given.
II. The injunction itself.
1. The great object of our life.
2. In what way we are to prosecute it.
(1) Avail yourselves of the opportunities afforded for public usefulness.
(2) Begin with the surrender of your whole souls to God. (C. Simeon,M. A.)
The important search
I. The object searched.
II. The method of search.
1. Earnestly.
2. Resolutely. (J. Wolfendale.)
Building the temple
The great aim of missionary work, at home and abroad, is the same. This great work may be illustrated by the text. We have--
I. The heart set upon God.
1. All work for God must begin with ourselves (Act_22:28; 1Ti_4:16).
2. It must be heart-work, not merely duty, custom, or sympathy.
3. There must be a deliberate setting of the heart and soul upon God as our God, reconciled in Christ, fixedly His (Psa_57:7; Deu_10:12).
4. There must be continued seeking God, in prayer, meditation, holy living.
II. The building-work going on. The living Church is God’s sanctuary. He dwells in the hearts of His people (Joh_14:23; 2Co_6:16; 1Co_3:16). The work of Christ’s followers is to build the sanctuary.
1. By gathering souls out of the world around to Christ.
2. By gathering souls into the Church, uniting in one body in Christ.
III. The sanctuary used for God. Union in the Church must be--
1. For consecration. The temple is not for ornament, nor for the admiration of the world, but for God.
2. For worship: “Bring the ark,” etc. The ark shadows forth the great propitiation (Rom_3:25). This must hold the first position in the Church, heart, ministry (1Co_2:2).
3. For service: “Bring the holy vessels,” etc. Each vessel has its use. (J. E. Sampson.)
“Set your heart”
Let us take this exhortation--
I. In its reference to God’s own people.
1. What are they to seek? “The Lord your God.”
(1) By endeavouring to obey Him in everything.
(2) In building up His temple. It should be the main object of our life to seek the Lord by building up His Church.
(3) By doing everything to God’s glory.
2. How are they to seek? “Set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God.”
(1) With fixity of purpose: “Set.”
(2) Have an intense affection towards God’s service and glory.
(3) With an energetic use of the intellect. We ought as much to speculate and scheme to glorify God as we meditate how to advance our business.
(4) By the union and concentration of all our faculties.
3. When are we to seek the Lord? “Now.” Now is the only time worth having, because it is indeed the only time we have. When did David mean by his “now”?
(1) Now that they had an efficient leader--Solomon.
(2) When God is with you.
(3) When God gives rest. “Hath He notgiven you rest on every side?”
II. In its reference to those who are converted.
1. Set your heart on true religion, and be not content with the outward form of it.
2. Seek the Lord Himself.
3. Seek Him at once with all your heart. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Seeking God
In the struggle of life many men and women are hampered and depressed by the memory of past weaknesses, errors, and sins. The hours of their real spiritual prosperity are overshadowed and embittered by the recollection of their spiritual adversities. It is one of the wise and helpful laws of ournature that in freeing ourselves from weakness and sin we do not free ourselves from the memory of them. The value of the experience lies in the lesson we learn from it, and the truest repentance is often witnessed by the poignancy of the sorrow, and both the lesson and the sorrow have their roots in memory. But, while we are not to forget that we have sometimes fallen, we are not always to carry the mud with us; the slough is behind, but the clean, clearly-defined road stretches ahead of us, skies are clear, and God is beyond. We were made for purity, truth, and fidelity, and the very abhorrence of the opposites of these qualities, which grows and deepens within us, bears testimony that our aspirations are becoming our attainments. The really noble thing about any man or woman is not freedom from all stains of the lower life, but the deathless aspiration which for ever drives us forward and will not let us rest in any past, whether good or bad. That which makes us respect ourselves is not what men call a blameless career, but the hunger and thirst after God which makes all our doing unsatisfying and inadequate to us. Better a thousand times the eager and passionate fleeing to God from a past of faults and weaknesses, with an irresistible longing for rest in the everlasting verities, than the most respectable career which misses this profound impulse. The past, remains with us to remind us of our perils and our constant need of help, but it ought not to haunt and oppress us. The real life of an aspiring soul is always ahead, We are notfleeing from the devil, but seeking God. (Lyman Abbott.)
