section 1
The search for the Lord would seem to not be for the faint-hearted, as we are told that we find Him when we search for Him with ALL our heart and soul deuteronomy 4:29 . But even the faint of heart could be a stirring from the Lord to make us desperate enough to seek for Him psalm 61:2 . Yes, God is found when we seek for Him with ALL our heart , jeremiah 29:13 , but that idea can discourage us when we do not understand what God is asking of us. We imagine that unless every bit of us is absolutely dedicated to the Lord there is no hope of really finding Him luke 13:22-30 hebrews 3:10 .
But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.
From the end of the earth I call to You when my heart is faint; Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as He made His way to Jerusalem. Someone asked Him, "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?" He said to them, "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.
Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’
"But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’
"Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’
"But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’ "There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last."
That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known My ways.’
section 2
Certainly, we are to do our best…be diligent…make EVERY EFFORT to be God’s unashamed workman ii timothy 2:15 who is making EVERY EFFORT to enter into His promises hebrews 4:11 and building our faith up ii peter 1:3-11 so that we will no longer be lacking what we should be and do i thessalonians 3:10 galatians 5:6 . Yet the Lord knows we are just dust psalm 103:14 with no strength to save ourselves job 40:9-14 isaiah 44:20 . If He based salvation, finding Him fully, on our ability we would most certainly be lost, but the demand for ALL reveals how far short we fall romans 3:23 and thus makes it obvious that our true need is His grace to be greater than our sin romans 5:20-21 . ALL is accomplished in our ultimate salvation romans 8:4, 28-30 through the relational process of sanctification i thessalonians 5:23 so ALL can be truly ALL james 1:4 ephesians 4:11-16 psalm 35:10 . So, because we live by the grace of the Holy Spirit, we should also make every effort to cooperate with Him galatians 5:25 ephesians 4:17-24 .
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the Word of Truth.
Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him Who called us by His own glory and goodness. Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith.
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
Do you have an arm like God’s, and can your voice thunder like His? Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor, and clothe yourself in honor and majesty. Unleash the fury of your wrath, look at all who are proud and bring them low, look at all who are proud and humble them, crush the wicked where they stand. Bury them all in the dust together; shroud their faces in the grave. Then I Myself will admit to you that your own right hand can save you.
Such a person feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, "Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?"
The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.
May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
So Christ Himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip His people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him Who is the head, that is, Christ. From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
My whole being will exclaim, "Who is like you, LORD? You rescue the poor from those too strong for them, the poor and needy from those who rob them."
So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
That, however, is not the way of life you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in Him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
section 3
We have a lot of growing up to do to just seek the Lord with ALL, to properly respond to His calling song of songs 5:2-8 , but it is this very perseverance in seeking Him that eventually produces an ALL out effort for the Lord song of songs 3:1-4 . So, we should train ourselves to be godly i timothy 4:7 so that as we seek the Lord with the little we have in ourselves, He will make that little grow up to greater glories i corinthians 3:5-7 mark 4:26-29 psalm 37:4 . We are rewarded not on the basis of the ALL, but by His grace on the effort we make towards that ALL i corinthians 3:8 . We ourselves are not a unified self. We each are a multifaceted hebrews 4:12 , distracted luke 21:34 , conflicted james 1:6-8 being. But the aim of our effort is to grow up in taking all those aspects of ourselves and unify them completely in Christ i corinthians 14:14-15, 20 ephesians 4:13, 15 . For the effort is acceptable from what you have, not what you do not have ii corinthians 8:12 luke 12:47-48 .
I slept but my heart was awake. Listen! My beloved is knocking:
"Open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my flawless one. My head is drenched with dew, my hair with the dampness of the night."
I have taken off my robe— must I put it on again? I have washed my feet— must I soil them again?
My beloved thrust his hand through the latch-opening; my heart began to pound for him. I arose to open for my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with flowing myrrh, on the handles of the bolt. I opened for my beloved, but my beloved had left; he was gone. My heart sank at his departure. I looked for him but did not find him. I called him but he did not answer.
The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city. They beat me, they bruised me; they took away my cloak, those watchmen of the walls! Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you— if you find my beloved, what will you tell him? Tell him I am faint with love.
On my bed night after night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him but did not find him. ‘I must arise now and go about the city; In the streets and in the squares I must seek him whom my soul loves.’ I sought him but did not find him.
"The watchmen who make the rounds in the city found me, And I said, ‘Have you seen him whom my soul loves?’ "Scarcely had I left them when I found him whom my soul loves; I held on to him and would not let him go Until I had brought him to my mother’s house, And into the room of her who conceived me."
Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.
What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God Who gives the growth.
He also said, "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come."
The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor.
For the Word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap.
But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.
Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.
until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him Who is the head, that is, Christ.
For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.
The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.
section 4
We are to seek the Lord, i.e. love the Lord with ALL our heart, soul, strength and mind luke 10:27 . But as we have looked at, we are not really able to give our all, we are not mature enough yet to even control our own selves let alone give ourselves fully and willingly to the Lord joshua 24:19 galatians 4:1-7 . But we are to continuously make the effort towards that end until He makes us perfect hebrews 7:25, 10:14 and saves every part of us. Each aspect of this command is an effort we can make in seeking the Lord, thus becoming like Him through His grace. While only the Holy Spirit through His Word can truly address each aspect and rightly divide it, we’ll artificially separate these individual aspects while acknowledging this is neither a complete explanation nor a definitive look. The intent is to merely learn how we are to seek the Lord with the aim of making that search an ALL prospect with ALL our being.
He answered, " ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’"
Joshua said to the people, "You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins.
Think of it this way. If a father dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own everything their father had. They have to obey their guardians until they reach whatever age their father set. And that’s the way it was with us before Christ came. We were like children; we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of this world. But when the right time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent Him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that He could adopt us as His very own children. And because we are His children, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, "Abba, Father." Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are His child, God has made you His heir.
Therefore He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them.
For by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
section 5
HEART- The heart is the core foundation of our true nature hebrews 4:12 jeremiah 17:9 matthew 12:34 matthew 15:18-19 romans 10:9 . So, we should cooperate with the Lord to see that our nature is made completely new in Jesus galatians 6:15 jeremiah 3:22-4:4 deuteronomy 30:6 hebrews 4:7 ezekiel 18:31, 36:26 . Much like a fish by nature lives in water, so we by nature live in rebellion. The very core of our life needs to be radically, miraculously changed in order to truly love the Lord with even a bit of our heart, let alone all of it.
For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.
If you declare with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation.
"Return, faithless people; I will cure you of backsliding."
"If you, Israel, will return, then return to Me," declares the LORD. "If you put your detestable idols out of My sight and no longer go astray, and if in a truthful, just and righteous way you swear, ‘As surely as the LORD lives,’ then the nations will invoke blessings by Him and in Him they will boast."
This is what the LORD says to the people of Judah and to Jerusalem: "Break up your unplowed ground and do not sow among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, circumcise your hearts, you people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or my wrath will flare up and burn like fire because of the evil you have done— burn with no one to quench it.
The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.
God again set a certain day, calling it "Today." This He did when a long time later he spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts."
Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, people of Israel?
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
section 6
SOUL- The soul is the epitome of the individuality of our own particular bents, idiosyncrasies, preferences, faults, talents, etc. ezekiel 18:4 . While the heart is the core of our nature, the soul is the individual overflow of that nature. Dogs have a certain nature to them, but each breed, even down to individual dogs have personalities, preferences, reactions, etc. Each of us has a response to the Lord that is specific from our own selves. We need to learn how to seek the Lord fully in our responses from our own individuality i corinthians 7:17, 24 romans 12:3-8 psalm 139:13-16 .
Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die.
Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches.
Brothers and sisters, each person, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation they were in when God called them.
For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.
For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.
section 7
STRENGTH- Our strength is the power, the ability to exert our will as far as we are actually capable joshuah 24:15, 19, 23 . Just as we cannot simply will ourselves to fly, God does not expect us to go beyond our own capabilities. He has given us real choices in which we can seek Him as we are capable of doing matthew 25:15 isaiah 45:19 . Do not expect this to feel easy, but rather expect it to be one of overcoming, for seeking the Lord with our strength is overcoming the obstacles of our own heart i peter 2:11 and our own circumstances revelation 21:7-8 . We must use the little strength God already knows we have revelation 3:8 to overcome what He has graciously given us the ability to overcome i corinthians 10:13 revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 26, 3:5, 12, 21 . It is with this small strength that we choose to overcome that His strength becomes ours to the utter ALL ephesians 1:19-20, 3:20 .
But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."
Joshua said to the people, "You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins.
"Now then," said Joshua, "throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel."
To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.
I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said to Jacob’s descendants, ‘Seek Me in vain.’ I, the LORD, speak the truth; I declare what is right.
Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.
"He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. "But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept My Word and have not denied My name.
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation He will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.’
‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.’
‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.’
‘He who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, TO HIM I WILL GIVE AUTHORITY OVER THE NATIONS;
‘He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.
‘He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name.
‘He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.
...His incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength He exerted when He raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms...
Now to Him Who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us...
section 8
MIND- The mind is where we think, consider, reason isaiah 1:18 as opposed to instinctual creatures who do not think and respond, but merely react ii peter 2:12 psalm 32:8-9 . But we have used our minds to invent evil micah 2:1 and justify ourselves against God job 40:8 colossians 1:21 . But our pursuit should be to think like God ii corinthians 10:5 , which does not come naturally isaiah 55:8 . Yet as we consider, weigh out and reason through the Scriptures unto obedience, our minds are filled with His life psalm 119:15 romans 8:5 and our thoughts become like His so that even our own thinking is given ALL in love for Him romans 12:1-2 .
"Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
But these people blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like animals they too will perish.
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with My loving eye on you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.
Woe to those who devise iniquity, And work out evil on their beds! At morning light they practice it, Because it is in the power of their hand.
Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways," declares the LORD.
Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Scripture quotations taken from one or more of the following versions as noted:
ESV = The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®) Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.
NIV = The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV® Copyright © 1973 1978 1984 2011 by Biblica, Inc. TM Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
NLT = The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
NASB = NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE(R), Copyright (C) 1960,1962,1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
HCSB = Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Used by Permission HCSB ©1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 Holman Bible Publishers. Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Holman CSB®, and HCSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.
NKJV = New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.