Hungry for God

Earlier this month, I finished the classic The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer, a pastor from the early twentieth century. For the next ten days, I will share a taste of each chapter from Tozer while also ending with a prayer you can pray each day directly from the book.

Question of the Day

If you are saved, are you hungry and thirsty for God?

Psalm 42:1–2

As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?

Do I hunger and thirst for God? For most of us, the answer is no. Our minds are swamped with the needs, wants, wishes, and desires of this world. We hunger for happiness, success, comfort, and rest. We thirst for good news, pay raises, and real time off.

Where is God?

Our diet of God is mostly a few bites on Sunday that we hope will keep us full for the week. Maybe we take a sip of His Word or snack on prayer here or there, but for the most part, I bet many of us are malnourished on God while overfed in the world.

Sadly, many of us do not even feel as though we could make a sustaining meal of God on our own. We require someone else to tell us about God rather than learning to know Him on our own.

Enough with the bad news. What is the solution?

Simplify your approach.

Quit trying to impress God.

Come to Him like a child coming to a parent.

Tozer ends with a reminder that it is not:

God and church, God and obedience, or God and happiness. It is simply God whom we seek.

What is one step you can take today to focus simply on God? It does not need to be fancy or elaborate. It does not require special music, clothing, or even a special space.

Simply ask God to fill you up!

Prayer to Pray or Consider

O God, I have tasted Thy goodness and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee. I long to be filled with longing. I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, “Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away.” Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Leader

On Monday, we started with a story depicting Jesus seeking the lost sheep. Today, we end with Jesus using another metaphor of being a shepherd. In John 10:11, Jesus says:

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.”

What is the job of the shepherd?

Protect from predators.

Find pastures to eat.

Care for wounds.

Locate water sources.

Create a place of safety each night.

The shepherd’s role is to lead the sheep to what is good for them and to help them when needed.

I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD.

Jesus is telling us that He is our Shepherd. He wants to lead, guide, help, and care for us.

Yet we often act like stubborn and foolish sheep, thinking we know the better way.

We like to do it on our own. But what good is a map, digital or printed, a compass, or a farmer’s almanac for a sheep?

None!

Sheep don’t need or get a map from God. They get a Shepherd — and a good one at that!

We often get frustrated when our best-laid plans do not work out as predicted. Is that because we are trying to chart a course without our Shepherd?

Jesus wants to lead us. Through tools like the Bible, opportunities like worship services, relational connection like prayer, and even deep internal pushes through His Holy Spirit, God is leading us toward green pastures and still waters. The Good Shepherd knows what is best for the sheep.

Will the sheep trust the Shepherd?

What is one area you are trying to control that you need to seek God for help with?

Pray for that one thing right now.

Forgiver

What if I told you that I will be giving you a large bottle of water, but there is a small amount of chicken juice that dropped into it? Would you drink it?

If you said yes, we need to talk because you are living life on the edge!

Most sane people would throw that bottle away with a “thanks, but no thanks!”

No matter how clean the water was, it is completely contaminated by that one single drop of chicken juice, potentially carrying salmonella.

The water would be thrown away because it is “bad,” “contaminated,” and “unworthy to be drunk.”

Now think about your life as that water bottle, and each drop of chicken juice as your choices against God’s design and desire. That is a fancy way to say sin, or doing things wrong.

Some of your bottles would be more chicken juice than water, but does that really matter?

One drop deemed it worthy of the trash, not consumption.

James 2:10 says:

“For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.”

Here is the point: All of us have sinned and fallen short of God’s standard (Romans 3:23). Whether you have lots of chicken juice or just a little, you are contaminated and not worthy to be in the presence of God.

That is where Jesus comes in. The Bible teaches us that if we confess our sins, we will be forgiven by the work of Jesus (1 John 1:9). Jesus has paid the price for that sin already. That includes the sin from yesterday, yesteryear, and even the sins you will struggle with in the future.

This is what forgiveness means: we are fully made clean in the eyes of God. Whether you are able to silence the shame that remains is a different story, but when we confess our sins, God forgives us fully.

Why did we need Jesus?

Dirty things cannot make themselves clean. Dirty water will not turn clean. A dirty shirt does not get the stains out. A dirty toilet, try as it might flush after flush, cannot clean itself.

Dirty things need help to be made clean.

The same applies to us: sinners need a Savior to be cleaned.

Nothing in your past, present, or future can ever disqualify you from the forgiveness offered through Jesus Christ.

Do you believe that?

Saved

This week at Best Week Ever, we are teaching the campers why JESUS IS THE BEST. Thus far, we have seen that Jesus seeks us like the one lost sheep among the 100. We have seen that Jesus loves us even if we feel no one else does. Today, we are teaching the kids that Jesus’ love culminates in a moment of excruciating pain: THE CROSS.

Why was Jesus killed?

On the surface, Jesus was killed because the religious leaders of that day felt attacked by His teachings, miracles, and goodness. This attack was not because Jesus harmed them, but because He was encroaching on their authority, attention, and prestige in the community. Seeking to protect themselves and their way of life, they persuaded the people that Jesus was against the God of Israel, not from Him.

It is a wonder how the people who had memorized large chunks of the Scriptures could miss the blatant revelation of God before their eyes!

It is easy to say Jesus was killed because the religious leaders feared and envied Him, but that is not the whole story.

Why was Jesus killed?

Because God had a plan to save every sinner from before the world was made, and that plan required a perfect sacrifice. How do we know that God had a plan? Because in the third chapter of the Bible, God alludes to His plan of the One who will bring final victory.

God knew that men and women would not be able to stop choosing things that harm and hurt, lead to pain and problems, and are selfish and sinful. God knew we could not stop ourselves from wanting what is not ours. He knew His perfect creation would be marred by selfish sons and daughters.

So, God chose to do the only thing that could be done to satisfy His justice while also redeeming those He loved deeply.

Jesus + the Cross = the only solution.

Jesus died for you because that is the only way God could make a way for you to be with Him. God was willing to allow His Son to suffer, be slandered, and eventually be slain on public display because He loves you. Jesus takes our earned punishment so that we can experience His earned reward.

This is the Good News.

Do you know this?

Do you believe this?

If so, please be praying today for our campers to understand it as we teach it in an age-appropriate manner.

If you do not know this, I would love to share more with you through these devotions, our Sunday service, or, most preferably, a direct conversation. It is the best news you can know!

Loved

Who loves you?

Make the list in your head!

For some of you, that list was a lot shorter than you imagined, while others left off some people after they ran out of fingers.

Whether in this moment you feel you are loved by many or by few, I want you to hear this clearly:

God loves you!

How do I know that?

Because Jesus shows us that He loves people nobody likes.

I am not saying you are unlikeable, but in Luke 19, we see Jesus love one of the most hated people in the community of Jericho: Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus was a tax collector, meaning he was the IRS if IRS agents could also charge extra to line their own pockets. No one likes the IRS, much less a crooked IRS agent who is living in luxury while you barely scrape by.

Out of all the people in Jericho Jesus could have spent time with, He chose Zacchaeus.

Why?

Jesus loves people nobody else likes.

There is no one on earth, or anyone who has ever walked the earth, that Creator God did not love. You are not the exception.

Your past, your present, your language, your laziness, your manipulation, your mental illness, your lifestyle, nor your lies disqualify you from being loved by God.

Jesus loves you.

Today at Best Week Ever, our students will hear:

Jesus loves us no matter what we have done and where we are.

Jesus loves us when we hit our sister.

Jesus loves us when we lie to our parents.

Jesus loves us when we use bad words about our friends.

Jesus loves us even when we say we don’t love Him.

Jesus loves us when we are embarrassed.

Jesus loves us when we get sent to the principal.

Jesus loves us when we make bad choices.

Jesus loves us when nobody else understands us.

Remember, Jesus wanted to be with Zacchaeus before he changed.

There is nothing I have done that makes Jesus stop loving me.

Sometimes, you may feel like no one loves you.

You may not have friends to play with.

You may be told nobody likes you.

You may be punished by your parents.

You may be left out by your siblings.

You may not get your way.

We all feel that sometimes.

Yet we can always remember:

Jesus loves me.

Always.

Forever.

On your best day and on your worst day.

When you're happy.

When you're angry.

When you're kind.

When you're selfish.

When everybody notices you and when nobody notices you.

Jesus always loves you.