The Key to the Good Things In Life, Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, December 30. People spend a lot of time and energy pursuing what's called the good life. But what exactly defines that kind of living for a believer in Jesus? Here's part two of The Keys to the Good Things in Life. What is it in my own heart that caused me to want to seek the Lord early in life? And I think oftentimes we who are parents forget how very important a little something here and there and how it influences our children. My grandfather is the one who said something to me that most influenced my desire to seek the Lord when I didn't have any idea what it meant.

Nobody told me to do it. That wasn't even the terminology he used. But I understand as I look back to realize, he's the one whom God used to even give me the idea that I could seek the Lord and that God and I could build an intimate relationship early in life of which I would be grateful all the days of my life. You see, most people are too satisfied with a very surface kind of relationship with Christ.

As long as they're saved and they go to church and God answers a few prayers and He gives them what they need. But I'm telling you, that's not even the beginning for the believer. But rather to learn to seek Him. Now, if to seek the Lord is to desire a deeper relationship with Him, yearning to know Him as He really is in all of His fullness, and we'll never know all of that until we get to heaven, but that is we're not satisfied with what we know. How does that begin?

Now here's what I want. I'm going to list some things that are all simple that we all know, but I want to say this in the beginning. It is to do these with a purpose. And the purpose is to seek the Lord, to know Him, to build this intimate, loving, wonderful relationship with Him, not just to get something from Him, though learning to seek Him and seeking Him I am going to get because He says, they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.

But it's doing it with a purpose. For example, it's one thing for me to pick up my Bible and to read something in the mornings. It is something else for me to pick it up and say, Lord, I want you to show me something about yourself. God, I want you to speak to me.

I want to understand who you are. It's one thing to read two chapters a day, four chapters a day to do a daily Bible reading, but it's something else for me to get on my knees or sit in a chair and ask the Holy Spirit, speak to my heart, show me the truth about yourself. Listen, you've heard me say it before, here's one prayer God will always answer, show me the truth. So in the Word of God, what I have is a written description of the attributes and of the ways that God operates. So if you want to learn to seek God, then open the book with the purpose of discovering who is this God? Who is this Christ?

Who is this Holy Spirit living on the inside of me and living through me the life of Jesus Christ? It is doing it with a purpose, a purpose that is motivated by a yearning, thirsting, hungering desire to know Him and to build an intimate fellowship and relationship with Him. If you're in love with somebody, you want to build a relationship with them. If you're in love with someone, you want to get to know them. In real genuine intimacy, barriers come down, ignorance comes down, and real intimacy is getting to know someone else on a deeper level than something that is physical, even a deeper level than something that is emotional. It is learning to know that person's spirit.

You see, when people have an intimate relationship with each other, they don't have to be talking all the time and explaining this, that, and the other and so forth. Intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ is something we build. And you see, to seek Him, my goal is to build that relationship.

I've won this with Him. Now if I'm going to do that, some things I have to do with a purpose, and I'm going to give you some scriptures in a moment, but I just want to go through these. First of all, so getting in the Word with a purpose.

Secondly, my prayer needs to have the purpose behind it. Lord, just open my heart and speak to me and show me yourself, Lord. And something Oswald Chambers taught me a long time ago, and I don't know how he said it, just reading most of his highs, the one thing I learned from him was this, the most important thing in my life is not my service, not winning people in Jesus and preaching sermons and being a pastor.

The most important thing in my life is building my relationship with Christ. You see, I believe it is a crying shame for a person to be 40, 50, 60 years of age and know little of the Word of God, have a very surface kind of relationship with God when that relationship could have been being built all these years. And this is why I say to you, don't come to church to hear sermons. Come to listen to God speak to you about you and what he wants to do in your life. That's why you ought to come with an open Bible and a pencil and a notebook. Don't come and simply listen to sermons.

Write down something that God says to you about you and about what he's trying to do in your life. Which leads me to the third thing and that's this, coming to worship the Lord. When you come to church, come with a purpose. Don't come because it's Sunday morning. That's not the reason to come to church. But you ought to come with a hungry heart.

You will walk away with some truth that will vitally impact your life if you will hear it, believe it, accept it and apply it to your heart. And you see, come with a purpose. And the purpose is God, what are you going to do in my life?

What do you want to say to me? You see, if you're going to seek the Lord, you have the purpose to do it. Here's the right attitude in seeking the Lord because it isn't something that's going to happen. You're not going to drift into seeking the Lord. So let me give you a group of scriptures and let's start with 1 Chronicles chapter 22. Look there for a moment.

Now you just come right along with me. 1 Chronicles 22 and look at this passage. And he says it clearly here. Verse 19, Now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God. That is, that's a decision you have to make. Lord, I choose to begin to seek you above everything else.

It is a decision you make. Set your heart to seek him. Then if you'll turn to Psalm 119 verses one and two, listen to this. How blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. How blessed are those who observe his testimonies. Listen, how blessed are those who seek him with all their heart. Look, you have to make a choice to seek the Lord. And this isn't some half hearted devotion. Well, you know, I pray in the mornings and read the Bible.

No. My friend, you're talking about the devil working you over. You set your heart to seek the Lord, to know him, to build an intimate relationship with him, to obey him, to follow him and the devil will work you over. Not half hearted devotion.

You know what that means? You have to put some other things aside. What really counts is a relationship with him.

Warm, intimate genuine relationship. Listen to me. I'll tell you one thing, 25 years from now, you'll thank God. You'll thank God that somebody said to you, set your heart to seek the Lord.

I wouldn't swap places with anybody in the world. And I'm so full of ignorance, it's amazing. But I know just enough to so excite me about him that I want you to be just as excited about learning who is this God you believe in.

Listen, you've trusted your whole eternal future in his hands. Who is he? What is he like?

How does he operate? And how do you build that intimate relationship? Sometimes you're going to get down to pray. You're not going to feel anything necessarily. Without warning in the most gentle, wonderful, overwhelming, indescribable way, there will be those visitations of the Lord Jesus Christ in your life that you cannot explain adequately nor fully to anyone else. You just know that something is happening. And here's what you'll discover. As you begin to seek him, you know what he'll do?

He will encourage you. It's like after a while, you begin to sense within your own heart something very wonderful is going on. Now, if somebody said, well, explain it. You can't explain it. And what's happening is like a fellow or a woman falling in love.

When you start falling in love, something begins to happen to you on the inside. If somebody says, well, what's happening? You say, well, you know, I don't know. Well, I see something different on your countenance.

Well, yeah. What's really happening is when you begin to fall in love with someone, something happens on the inside. You begin to feel different and you begin to act a little different.

You might talk a little different and surely there's something glowing. When you begin to fall in love with Jesus Christ and he is the true genuine priority in your life, friends, you're going to feel it. You're looking for a feeling, you just start seeking the Lord and God will give you those moments of visitation to assure you and to encourage you to keep going.

Then if you'll turn to 1 Chronicles chapter 16, there are a couple there, 1 Chronicles 16. He says in verse 10 of 1 Chronicles 16, let the heart of those who seek the Lord be glad. Listen, when you begin to seek the Lord and he becomes the priority and you begin to major on developing that relationship, you know what's going to happen? There's going to be a new joy in your life. Listen, everything about your circumstances may be the same. Somehow there's this awesome sense of joy you cannot describe.

Here's the reason. As your intimacy with Jesus Christ begins to grow, I'm going to show you in just a moment what happens. You begin to see things the way he sees them. And it's amazing when you're in a bad situation that there's no way out and nothing ever changes, but something begins to change inside of you. That's why people say, I can't stand it long, I'm getting out.

You may get out, but you may lose your greatest opportunity. Don't get out of anything God's put you in. Hang in there until God does his full work in your heart.

We will discover a whole sense of joy. Verse 11, seek the Lord and his strength, seek his face continually. He said, well, how long do I seek him?

Till Jesus comes or till he comes and takes you. Then when you get to heaven, I know that we're going to know everything, but I believe that for all eternity we're still going to be discovering who is this infinite God whom we serve and whom we've loved and who's taken us home to heaven. We're to seek him continually. And then Psalm 63, if you look at that one for a moment, I just want to give you these for you to think about in your own devotion. Psalm 63 verse 1 says, oh God, thou art my God, I shall seek thee earnestly.

That is with enthusiasm and anticipation. And then that whole Psalm, you just may want to put that whole Psalm down. And if you'll notice as a result, he says in verse 1 also, my soul thirsts for thee, my flesh yearns for thee.

Let me ask you a question. What does your flesh yearn for? Or what does your heart thirst for? What is it that you think could really satisfy you?

What do you get up in the morning thinking about and wanting in life? Listen, when you can say Jesus Christ, then that's a good evidence that you're really seeking the Lord. And look in this same passage, verse 5, there's a real contentment here. He says, I'm coming back to this, and my soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth offers praises with joyful lips. You see, when you and I begin to seek him, something happens on the inside of us.

Now, let me give you about maybe four or five others. And what happens when a person begins to seek the Lord? Well first of all, he not only brings us into that relationship where as we said, the good things in life are all those things that fit into his will and his purpose for our life. And when you and I begin to seek him, we'll not want for any good thing, because he's going to provide it. He'll give us the desires of our heart. And my friend, one of the keys to success in life is seeking the Lord.

Now, I want you to turn to 2 Chronicles 31. Listen to what he says in verse 20. And thus Hezekiah did throughout all Judah, and he did what was good, right, and true before the Lord his God. And every work which he began in the service of the house of God in law and in commandments, listen to this, seeking his God, he did with all his heart and prospered. That's really what God said to Joshua in the first chapter of Joshua.

Turn there for just a moment. He just says it in a little different way. And you recall that when Joshua took over Moses' responsibility, what God said to him. He said in verse 7, only be strong and very courageous. Be careful to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you.

Do not turn from it to the right or to the left so that you may have success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do all the things that are written in it for then you'll make your way prosperous and then you'll have success. Because what he was saying is as you meditate upon the law, you're going to understand my ways and my will and we're going to build such a relationship that you're going to do the right thing and you're going to make the right decisions and you're going to prosper and you're going to be a success.

My friend, the key to success in life is not seeking position and power and prestige and money and wealth, it is seeking the Lord. Now, I want to give you a couple other scriptures here because here's a good example. Turn to Proverbs 28 verse 5. Proverbs 28 verse 5. Listen to this verse because you think well this couldn't possibly be true.

But God doesn't say anything that's not. Proverbs 28 5, we say when we begin to seek the Lord, he says we're not going to want for anything, any good thing. He'll give us the desires of our heart.

He is going to prosper us. Now look at this verse. Verse 5 of Proverbs 28. Evil men do not understand justice. Now remember this, don't forget this. An evil heart is a cloudy heart.

Let's put it this way. An evil heart is a cloudy heart, an impure heart. An evil mind is a cloudy mind, impure heart and a cloudy mind. And an evil life, evil heart means also a rebellious spirit.

So let's turn that around. One who is seeking the Lord, when you begin to seek the Lord, here's what happens. Your heart becomes pure, your mind becomes clear, and your spirit becomes submissive.

Now look at this. Verse 5. Evil men do not understand justice. But those who seek the Lord understand all things. Does that mean if you seek the Lord you just know everything?

No. But it means that a person who seeks the Lord knows always, listen, a person who's seeking the Lord knows always what is morally right and what is morally wrong. So what he's saying is this, as you and I learn to seek the Lord, we're not going to want for anything, any good thing. He's going to give us the desires of our heart. He's going to prosper us. He's going to give us understanding we would not have any other way. We'll be able to discern things. Other people will not be able to discern why. Look at this.

Why? Because as the years go by and you and I learn to walk in oneness and fellowship with Him and we learn to think the way He thinks. We learn His ways and we begin to see how God operates. We begin to be able to interpret God's actions in other people's lives as we see them obey Him and get blessed and disobey Him and be chastened or punished. We begin to see things the way God sees them and our understanding becomes very clear. The heart becomes pure then the mind becomes clear and the spirit becomes obedient and submissive to Him. I'm not saying that there will not come sometimes when there are difficulties and situations in learning to know the Lord's will because sometimes we just don't want to do it.

But think about all the things He says here. The good things in life He's going to provide when you seek Him. He says He'll give us the desires of our heart when we seek Him.

You know why I can say that? Because we're seeking Him. We only want what He wants. And so if I want what God wants then I'm going to get what God gives and what I'm going to have are the desires of my heart. He says that's the way to prosper.

That's the way to success. He gives us understanding. And we saw in Psalm 63 He says He satisfies us. There's a sense of contentment in the heart of a person who is seeking the Lord. Not on any other way to say this except this. I can tell you this as a pure simple testimony of truth. The most exciting thing in my life, the most fulfilling thing in my life, though I like lots of things, places, is to get on my face before God and to talk to Him and to fellowship with Him. And I'm here to tell you there isn't anything in the whole world that will do for the human heart what that will do once you begin to build a relationship with Him. Thank you for listening to part two of The Key to the Good Things in Life. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.