“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” — Jeremiah 29:13 (ESV)
God Desires to be Encountered
There is a misconception in Christianity that we cannot tangibly encounter our Heavenly Father. Often we’re taught that we are too broken, dirty or sinful to experience God. We’re told that experiencing God is only for some people, or only for some nations and cultures. Or maybe as a result of a lack of experiencing God in the past, we believe that we are made without something that allows us to encounter God. Maybe we believe that encountering God is for other people, but not for us. Nothing could be further from the truth.
We encounter God because He desires to be encountered, not because we possess some special ability. We encounter God because He longs for us to know Him, not because we are more holy than someone else. You see, encountering God is entirely based on His grace and love for us.
In Jeremiah 29:13 (ESV), God promises us, “You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart.” All that is required of us to experience God is time and energy set aside to seek Him. Let that truth settle into your heart for a moment. Allow your beliefs about encountering God to be renewed by His Word. You can undoubtedly experience the living, active and most high God right now because He desires for you to. He longs for you to experience Him. His greatest desire is for His children to walk in the fullness of relationship available to them. He gets excited about the idea of tangibly revealing Himself to you. He is filled with joy at the idea that you would experience all the love He has in His heart for you.
Romans 8:38-39 (ESV) says, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Jesus did what no one else could. He made a way for us to tangibly experience our Heavenly Father. Nothing can separate us from the love of our Heavenly Father because Jesus has restored us completely into the fold of God. The curtain of the holy of holies was torn in two. The manifest presence of God was released by the sacrifice of Jesus for all the children of God to experience.
What do you feel is in the way of you experiencing your Heavenly Father today? What past experience or present thoughts are keeping you from seeking God with all your heart? May Hebrews 10:19-22 (ESV) guide you into a powerful encounter with your loving Heavenly Father who desires for you to experience Him today:
“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that HHe opened for us through the curtain, that is, through His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.”
— Craig Denison, First 15
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