How to Seek God Daily — Part 1
You may perhaps be a new believer who has just received Christ. Or, you may have already believed in Jesus for many years but nevertheless desire to know Him more, to draw closer to Him, in order to live out a life of greater vitality.
If this is what you thirst for, no matter how long you have believed in Jesus, then this article introduces a simple method to help you do so.
New Life, New Relationship
When a person believes in Jesus, he is not receiving some sort of spiritual comfort or some kind of psychological sustenance per se. Believing in Jesus doesn’t mean one has attained some kind of enlightened perspective that allows him to see all there is to life. Receiving Christ is also not about joining a religious organisation.
It is about knowing the God who created everything that exists (including humans). It is about getting to personally know God’s only son, Jesus. It is not about getting God to fulfil one’s whims and wishes. It is simply a sober realisation of one’s sinfulness that is beyond self-help, acknowledging that Jesus had extended his rescue to oneself by dying on the cross to atone for one’s sins.
Each believer who believes in Jesus as his Lord and Saviour must admit the fact that he is powerless to throw off the punishment of sins due him. He relies entirely on God’s grace and by faith, invites Jesus into his heart to be his personal Lord and Saviour.
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”
— Ephesians 2:8-9
The moment you sincerely receive Jesus as Saviour marks the turning point where you become God’s child, forgiven of sins, given a new lease of life—it’s like being born again!
Have you been born again? If you are currently unsure of your relationship with God but would like to have a relationship with Him as your Father, you may like to tell Jesus the following words:
“Dear Lord Jesus, I know full well that I am someone who has sinned and still has sins in my life. I am unable to quit sinning by my own strength and will; I cannot save myself from my sins. You have already sacrificed yourself on the cross for my sins by dying to atone for my sins. I would like to invite you into my heart and life to be my Lord and Saviour. I am willing to change and alter my ways to follow your will, if that is what is meant by repenting. Thank you for listening to my request.”
1 John 5: 11-12 tells us clearly,
“And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”
The very moment you receive Jesus as your personal Lord and Saviour, you inherit eternal life. This assurance is guaranteed; based entirely on what God says—it is His promise and not some kind of sentiment or reasoning. It is also not the result of an effort anyone can come up with.
If you have already prayed the prayer to receive Christ, you are now a Christian with a new identity. You have established a new relationship with God—as His child!
John 1:12 says,
“Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”
When you first went before God to repent of your sins, opening the door of your heart to accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, right there and then, God had already bestowed eternal life upon you.
What is Eternal Life?
Praying to receive Jesus is only the first step of a person’s spiritual journey. Before knowing the Lord, we were simply living for ourselves. Now that we have believed in the Lord, we must change our ways and live our lives with Christ as the centre of our lives instead. To do this, we must establish a close relationship with our Lord Jesus.
Now, in order to develop a closer relationship with someone, we first need to familiarise ourselves with that person and this involves spending time to interact with him or her. It is the same with our Lord Jesus; we need to spend time to connect with Him, to get to know Him more.
This kind of intimacy cannot be developed just by going for fellowship gatherings once or twice a week. Many believers remain stunted in their spiritual growth; they misunderstand God’s ways, find it difficult to stand firm in the faith, and often stumble when met with testing—mainly because they are missing out on a close walk with God.
Knowing God is the core of all spiritual experiences of saving grace. We were created to know Him; this is also the goal of our ceaseless pursuit.
John 17:3 says,
“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
This “knowing” is not a theoretical kind of knowledge, it is not a textbook knowledge obtained from schools or seminaries, and it is not simply about accumulating information about God. It is a personal and experiential knowledge that is grounded in practicality.
The following two reasons explain the importance of truly and deeply knowing God.
1. God wants to reveal Himself to us
In Psalm 27:8 (NASB), David heard God saying, “Seek My face”.
John 14:21 tells us,
“Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.
He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”
We can see that God delights in fellowshipping with us and hopes to invite us to fellowship with Him. He beckons to us and even commands each of us as His sons and daughters to meet with Him daily, to draw nearer to Him—to know Him more!
Are we taking the initiative to submit to Him gladly and eagerly? To seek Him daily? To meet with Him?
Only God can help us to truly get to know Him. Never mind that there are countless angels who reverently adore and worship Him; He still chooses to enjoy a fellowship with mere mortals like us!
2. We must grow to know God more
“I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
— John 15:5
We need to draw spiritual nourishment from Jesus in order to be strengthened spiritually.
A handphone that has run out of battery would not function. A similar principle applies to us; we need to connect with God daily to get recharged from the inside out, in order to face the busyness and challenges that each day brings.
Thus, it is best for us to meet with this great God daily to foster an intimate relationship — to know this great God more, to love Him more, and to obey Him more.
Biblical Examples
Jesus
“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”
— Mark 1:35
Jesus rose early in the morning and proceeded to a quiet place to commune with the Father in preparation for a busy day’s work ahead.
Moses
“Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the ‘tent of meeting’. Anyone inquiring of the LORD would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp… The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.”
— Exodus 33:7, 11
Moses knew that he could not handle all the affairs of the Israelites by himself. So, he established the habit of regularly frequenting the camp of meeting to meet with the Lord, to hear of His will and to seek wisdom on how to lead the Israelites in living a life that reveres God. Moses’ relationship with God is so close that their time together can be described as a conversation between close friends and confidantes.
David
“In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.”
— Psalm 5:3
"Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.”
— Psalm 143:8
It was David’s life habit to rise in the morning to listen out for God’s voice and to share his heart to Him in prayer.
Your Choice
The three examples listed above have clearly exemplified how we can meet with God daily. Though our eyes have not seen Him, yet the Holy Spirit who lives in us enables us to commune with God face to face, “as a man speaks with his friend”.
Thus, some have termed this spiritual practice as “Devotional Time” or “Quiet Time”.
Would you be willing to respond to the invitation of the Lord, to draw near to Him?
If you are, make a commitment to decide to meet with the Lord at a set time daily. Make this your prayer now and tell the Lord about it.
How to Meet with God Daily
There is notably more than one method to engage in the spiritual practice of seeking God daily to meet with Him. The ultimate aim of this spiritual practice is to connect with God and by doing so, to know Him more.
You may like to refer to the following recommendations to start your spiritual practice of seeking God daily. It takes at most 20 minutes. Once this has become a habit, you can go on to fine-tune the finer specifics of time and method accordingly.
What needs to be done: We are meeting the Lord in the spirit to communicate with each other. Thus, the spiritual practice of seeking Him has two essential requirements:
First, we need to take in the Word of God, to ponder over them.
“Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love."
— Psalm 143:8a
Secondly, we need to respond to what God has said to us.
“In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation.”
— Psalm 5:3
Some believers may be reading several chapters of scriptures in the morning, but they may not be giving much thought to what they have read. They may hurriedly pray a few words of prayer and conclude their time with God hastily. This seems rather one-sided. Will this lack of quality time with God help one get to know God more?
Even a conversation between two people needs reciprocity and a mutually conscious effort to be attuned to each other’s thoughts and feelings. What more a time of interaction with the Lord Himself?
Silent meditation on God’s Word—to thoughtfully listen in on what He is saying, when coupled with prayer (what you are saying to Him), acts like a pair of wings—both ought to be rightly valued in order to achieve a sense of balance in our communication with God.
We must do two things:
- Fix a time for our daily Quiet Time with God (ideally the same time daily)
- Decide on a place to meet with God (it is best to meet Him at the same location)
(Stay tuned for Part 2!)