BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

I got born again reading those verses, so I’ve known about the seeking life for almost 50 years now. I was excited about it from the beginning. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve gotten smarter. So I’m more sold on it today than ever. Why? Because the seeking life is THE BLESSED LIFE. It’s the kind of life that opens the door to God’s highest and best will for us. The seeking life not only offers us health, prosperity and success, it also provides us with peace, joy and every other good thing. Over the years, I’ve discovered that the more I seek God, the happier and more wonderful my life becomes. I’ve also learned it’s much better to cultivate a God-seeking lifestyle than it is to just coast along until I get in trouble and then look to Him for the way out. Even though He’s merciful to us anytime we sincerely call on Him, we can avoid a lot of upset and pain by sticking close to Him every day. We can enjoy more smooth sailing in our lives if we continually seek to do things God’s way. Not Just a Once-a-Week Event “Well, Gloria,” someone might say, “I think I’m doing all right when it comes to seeking God. After all, I go to church every Sunday.” I’m glad you do! That’s a good start. But the seeking life isn’t just a once-a-week event. If you really want to be BLESSED, you need to go after the things of God every day. You need to keep the Word of God in front of your eyes, in your ears and in the center of your heart all the time. That’s what it takes to keep your thinking straight. The reason is simple: We live in a world that’s inundated with darkness. We’re surrounded by a crazy culture that thinks bad is good and good is bad. The devil is constantly using every means available to confuse us and darken our minds. So, even if you go to church on Sunday morning and Wednesday night, you’re going to get off track if you do what everyone else does on the other days of the week. A lot of Christians don’t seem to understand this. They think it’s OK to come home from work every day and sit in front of the television watching the same ungodly programs their unsaved neighbors do. I’m not just talking about the ugly stuff on the pornographic channels, either. I’m talking about the trash on all the other networks that dishonors God or promotes immorality. Although it’s easy to just go with the world’s flow and watch whatever comes on the television screen, you can’t live the seeking life by just floating along and being lazy. You have to resist the devil and choose to do things God’s way. That means sometimes you have to turn off the TV altogether and open your Bible. In other words, you have to take action. Seek is an action word! According to the dictionary it means “to go after something with intense effort; to try to find, to ask or inquire for; to learn or discern.” I was reminded of this several years ago when I lost my Daytimer. All my appointments for the next few weeks were listed in it, so I was desperate to locate it. As you can imagine, I looked and looked and looked for that book. I went through my desk drawers. I dug through my closet. I searched through my car and Ken’s car. Even though it took a lot of effort, I kept seeking and seeking because I had to have that book. Sure enough, I finally found it. Later it occurred to me, if I was willing to look that hard for something that would just affect a few days or weeks of my life, how much more willing should I be to seek after the things of God—things that will affect my entire life, all the way into eternity? The Sentence That Changed My Life Another definition for seek comes from a Hebrew root word which means “to tread or to frequent.” I like that definition because to be God-seekers we must frequently tread, or spend time, in His Word and in prayer. Personally, I’ve never had much problem spending time in the Word. I’ve loved reading and studying it ever since I got born again. I rarely let a day go by without spending time in the Bible. I must confess, however, I haven’t always had the same attitude about prayer. I didn’t really make it a daily priority in my life until 1982. That’s when I was in a meeting listening to Brother Kenneth E. Hagin. He delivered a prophetic word that contained one sentence that changed my life. FEB '14 : BVOV : 29

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