Seeking God Lifestyle

Hello, Matt Bennett here. Welcome to the Bennett broadcast. Thank you so much for listening or watching, participating. I really, really appreciate it. And this is Episode 8, Seeking God Lifestyle. I hope the sounds coming through well. I live here in New York City and there's a parade right outside my window. There's a lot of parades here in New York. Hopefully the sound is not a lot of music going on here outside, but glad to have this time with you. And by the grace of God, you will be blessed over these next number of minutes and learning more about what it means to see revival happen and to seek to Lord for revival. There's a lot of misunderstandings about revival, how it comes and what we do, how do we see and trust God to bring radical transformation to our society. And that's what this whole Bennett broadcast is about through a lot of study. I've done through the years, American history, world history, also looking at the international church and by participating in a couple of revivals myself by the grace of God. I've seen a lot and the most is of course coming through studying the scriptures. So that's what this whole series is about. And this one is a simplified message on what it takes, what we do to seek the Lord such that he responds and pouring out a spirit and does all the wonderful things that revival is radically changing our society, lots of salvation, healings, many more people walking in Lordship and devotion, cultural change and many cultural spheres. There's a lot that happens when there's these consistent outpourings of the spirit such that we have revival. But we got to keep in mind what do we do, what's our part in all of this. And the Lord is good and Lord is faithful and he's given us some promises in the scriptures that we do certain things, he'll do certain things. And just like when we come to faith, we know repent and believe we know that he will save us and forgive us our sins regardless of how we feel. That's what God does. Similarly, similarly with revival, that's certain things that we do and he'll pour out his spirit. So that's what this is about. And I'll call this the Seeking God lifestyle. You'll see the reasons wise we get into that the benefit of understanding the seven parts or the seven principles of seeking the Lord is that this hopefully can help you center your life on how to be used to the Lord and your local church or friends to maximize your impact for the kingdom. There are going to be a lot of things to focus on, but here we're focusing on Seeking the Lord and this is the center of what it means to know God and walk with the Lord. A culture of Christians seeking the Lord wholeheartedly, it pleases him and is the means established by him to attract his presence for power and success and deepening expanding the king of God. Seeking him as he requires is the highest aim of humanity. So the question we have for ourselves is remembering and thinking through why did God create us? How can we experience all the blessings of the gospel? How can they be released in my life and all society? A lot of blessings come when we first become Christian, but there's more grace more to come and it's accessed through certain behaviors in our part and comes to us by the grace of God. We never merit these things, but we do need to meet certain conditions for us promises to come into effect. So these questions are answered as we understand and practice our responsibility to seek the Lord wholeheartedly. God responds by pouring out a spirit, blessing individuals, communities and nations. So the benefits of our understanding all this is it's pleasing to God and the Lord commands us to please him and helps us to fulfill our purpose and our destiny in every way. We're filled with the spirit. We gain a deeper understanding what the Lord is like and what he values and that's beautiful and wonderful. It also helps us to have leadership opportunities to help other people and be part of a movement of Christians radically seeking the Lord. I think of this quote here by Richard Allen. He was a founder on the founding bishop of the AME Church African Methodist Episcopal Church back in the late 1700s. He says, if we seek God with the pure heart, we will find him. He will guide us on the path of righteousness and reveal his love and grace to us. All right. So this concept or this language of seeking God, I focused on this language in particular. You can describe this in other ways such as maybe loving God, but the term and phraseology seeking God is used 130 times in the Bible and just about every time it's referring to believers as not to non-believers. Now today we've taught you we think sometimes about like a seeker sensitive church service or something. Nothing wrong per se and doing that, but that's for non-Christians. The vast majority of times the word is used in the Bible like 90% or more. It is for Christians, so our believers rather. So this is for us so that we might draw close to the Lord and be pleasing to him and other phraseology could be used, but since this is used so often and there's a couple of other reasons to use this language. I'll mention in a moment, but seeking God is the heartfelt practice of Christians' expending effort to pursue God wholeheartedly with the attitudes and practices he describes. He requires in the Bible, believing he will respond with his presence and blessings as promised. It's another way of expressing an idea of loving God with all one's heart, soul, mind and strength. So why not use the loving God phraseology? Well, that term, it's not used as much in the Bible. It is, we are commanded to love God and there's passages on that that might be used. I don't know, maybe 20 times in the scriptures and it's very much synonymous, but another problem with the way of using the term loving God today, at least for these purposes, not that you don't use it, but it can get confusing. A lot of times loving God, people using think will just have a good feeling towards God and that's great. That's not what loving God means in the Bible, but people can think about it today. As long as they have a good feeling about God, then things are good between them and God. And that's not the case. And so the term seeking God is a different term for a similar action and might be helpful to clarify some things that we can be, all that we can be. It's also behavior-focused, which is helpful. So, of course, this and other terms are used in the Bible. Like drawing close to the Lord, that's another phraseology that's used in the Bible, so they all have their place. But we use a phrase here seeking God. It's used many times. So, as we remember, as we think about what it means to seek God, it's all about the Lord Himself. It's about a thirst and hunger for His presence. Psalm 42, 2 says, as the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God, I soul thirst for God for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? And also Psalm 81, 10 through 11, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, open your mouth wide and I will fill it. So, this is what the Lord wants us to do. He wants us to feast on Him to draw close to Him. And as a reminder, too, we want the Lord and we want all the blessings that He brings. You can't have a one without the other. Sometimes it can people can rightly be criticized. All you want is a good things from God. You don't want God Himself and you don't want that. But then sometimes, people will say, well, Lord, I want you, but not your hand, just your face and not your hand. But it doesn't work that way either because when the Lord comes and we seek Him a part of who He is is goodness and blessings and life and peace. So, they go together. The Lord Himself includes His blessings. So, we want them together as we seek His face. He can't help but bring His blessing, His presence, His joy and blessing and life. There's a lot of passages, as mentioned that use these phraseology of seeking the Lord. I picked a couple out in the Old Testament and but there's about 130 in the Old Testament. Second Chronicles 7 and 14, famous passage on revival says, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and here it is, seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. So, the question is, what is being meant in that phrase seek my face? And there's seven parts to this which is we're getting to in just a moment and all supported from the scriptures. Isaiah 556 says, seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. So, all throughout the scriptures we see this. In the New Testament you see similar phraseology, Hebrews 116, and without faith it is impossible to please Him forever, would draw near to God, must believe that He exists and the rewards those who seek Him. So, this was written to believers to remind them that as you seek the Lord and intensify your seeking, He does reward you and that that is what faith is and that you're not living a life of faith if you're not eagerly seeking the Lord and I'll lay out the seven categories, the seven ways in which we seek the Lord. Here, so, we want to be faithful Christians, we want to be full of faith, then we got to understand what these seven ways are of seeking the Lord. Now, James 4, it's got the concept of seeking the Lord, doesn't use that phrase, but it's just such a great passage, says, draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, purify your heart, you double-minded, be wretched and mourn and weep, let your laughter be turned to morning and you joy to gloom, humble yourselves before the Lord and He will exalt you. So, it's a sane concept, draw near to God that puts effort and energy towards drawing near to the Lord and He draws near to us. That's a promise in the Scriptures and we want to rest and believe God's promises, a man of faith believes the Lord's promises. There are some differences between the old covenant and when the believers sought the Lord versus the new covenant. There's a lot to this, I'm not going to go into it fully, but we got to realize that this is important to know that the principle still exists, even if the benefits are a little bit different. And I say this is because even in some Western Christian circles, people will get confused and I know people who are quite educated and with PhDs and MDIs and they'll say things and saying things like, well, in the Old Testament, when they got in a tough situation, they had to pray fast and repent and the Lord would come. But isn't that great? We don't have to do that now because of Jesus. He's done this for us. Absolutely false, completely not true, 100% not true and it causes a lot of trouble and problems in the body of Christ. There's this emphasis while the Lord Jesus has done this for us. He's done some things for us, but he has not removed the need to seek the Lord whole heartedly as I read those New Testament passages I just did and there's plenty more. So we miss out on the blessings of God because then we don't energetically seek the Lord as he requires and we can just shrug back and say, well, Jesus has done it all. Well, he's has done some things, but he's also expecting us to draw close to him. So there is a difference in the new covenant. We have greater access and grace when we seek the Lord than the Old Covenant because of the blood of Jesus Christ because the veil has been torn. We have access. We are able to have outpourings of the Spirit all over the place before. As you remember, it was only in the Holy of Holies where the presence of God could do well. Now he can be poured out on groups of people and individuals. This never happened in the Old Covenant. So there are differences. We are also promised in the new covenant even when we have his full favor, we will have persecution and obstacles. That wasn't part of the promise in the Old Covenant. There's more to this, but wanted to point out a little bit that the principle remains that we must seek the Lord with great energy to get his full blessings in our lives. So I'm going to put our attention towards the early church. It's always helpful to look at the early church because the historians recognize there's a rapid, rapid, amazing growth in the church for the first number of hundreds of years. And so the question is, well, why was that? Why did they see such a rapid growth? And you'll see here in a minute because they had such an eagerness and seek in the Lord. But there are a number of schools of thought out there that teach there are a lot of books written on this and they center on a few different aspects of the early church. Some point to the martyrs. So many people died for the faith. And as the saying goes, it's the blood of the martyrs is a seed of the church. And you can see how this was absolutely the case when people see that willing to die, horrible deaths to believe in this. That spurred people to believe. I'm also people point to the incredible compassion that Christians had. They would take care of their own poor and the poor of other people as well. And during clags, they would help and risk their lives for other people is very noticeable. So this also is a factor. Also, some other books point to the role of healings and miracles. And this also played a role. People saw the real power of God when there are miracles and healing. So there are these different schools of thought. But I think it can all be summed up in this concept of seeking the Lord. Professor Emeritus at University of Virginia, Robert Lewis Wilken wrote in a book, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought Seeking the Face of God. And he identifies the spirit of early Christian thinking his thesis and he believes that the number one focus of the church for the first 400 years was seeking the Lord with great energy. And he quotes this passage in Psalm 1054 that it says, Seek his face always. Augustine, the famous church of Father, he quotes this verse in his book, The Trinity. And according to this professor Emeritus, the University of Virginia, more than any other passage, it captures the spirit of early Christian thinking. So this is what Augustine says about this. He was bishop of hippo. And the fifth century, he says, the God himself, we are looking for will help us. I confidently hope to get some fruit from our laborers and to understand the meaning of the text in the Holy Psalm. Let the heart of those who seek the Lord rejoice, seek the Lord and be strengthened, seek his face always. Now this is a quite remarkable statement for a church historian to say, this is the most descriptive or quality or mindset of the church, at least for the first 400 or 500 years, is noteworthy. And I agree, I think he's right on. This is what embodied the heart and mindset. And because they had that, then they were willing to die for the fate and he had the martyrs. They were trusted the Lord and believed for miracles and healings would happen. They also, of course, had the faith and strength to be compassionate and deny themselves because they're so focused on pleasing the Lord and seeking his face. Now I want to shift back to a modern Western or American mindset because as this subject comes up with folks, I think and I'm talking about good Christians who go to church and volunteer and give and everything, the mindset is, but we are seeking God. And I've talked to some devout Christians before. I really admire and looking at this subject together and this will be their insistence. Like, what do you mean? How does this apply to me? I am seeking God. But and this is a contrast and this is not easy to hear and to receive, but seek in the Lord as we think is acceptable versus seek in the Lord as he requires may not be the same thing. And it's our job as Christians to close that gap if there is a gap because let's face it, the Lord decides what's acceptable and what defines seeking him. We don't get to say that. We don't get to say, well, I do my devotions and I confess sins here and then I go to church on Sundays and I'm good if he's requiring more of us than we are doing now. And so we've got to look at the scriptures and then which will be validated in church history to see whether we are seeking him whole heartedly. Many Christians in the U.S. do seek God but very, very few seek him whole heartedly as he says we are to seek him. So Jeremiah 29, 11 to 14 says, if I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans for welfare not for evil that give you a future and a hope, then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you declares the Lord and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I've driven you declares the Lord. Now I'll bring you back to the place from which I sent you and exiled. Now the first part of that what I just read that is quoted a lot at times by people and about I know the plans for you I'll give you a future and hope but it's very, very, very critical that we read this next verses to verses and then you will call upon me come and pray to me you seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. We have to be doing that part. The first part only comes about we only experience the Lord's good plans good plans when we seeking with all our heart and of course guess who defines what is seeking him with all our hearts we don't define what that is he defines it and that's what this been a broadcast is about. Now we see the theme echoed in 1027 here using the language of loving God but similar concept hitting answered you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself so it takes everything and he defines what everything is so we need to seek the Lord wholeheartedly as it requires not a worldly approach because the mind said the temptation is we will seek him as is convenient or as is customary or as is comfortable that doesn't is it too difficult or is socially acceptable in these ways but you can go for that um if we just go along with its convenient customary comfortable we won't be seeking him whole heartedly we won't have the blessings we won't be meeting the conditions of the promises he's that laid out for us so as we look at the historical church in the us and the western church the intensity and the means and the amount of focus and energy seeking the Lord is very different than the west today for those who traveled internationally and seen the church in Africa and some parts of Latin America China Korea the Pacific islands and other places I mean these places aren't fire they're seeing great advances in the gospel and they seek him with a lot more time focus and energy and that's why we have that's why we're declining in the west and they're increasing in terms of their devotion and salvation and everything else so it's it's not a matter of sparking revival that's language that people use some time I don't like to use that language because it almost kind of implies we're just sitting back and something weird happens and then quote revival comes out points of the spirit the revivals come when increasingly large numbers of Christians are seeking him as the Lord requires and that's what we need to see happen in America increasingly large numbers of seek in the Lord as he requires then you see revival by the grace of God so Christians are to seek God wholeheartedly as it requires not as is convenient customary comfortable otherwise we're displeasing to him even though he loves us and we will continue to see a rising tide of chaos division immorality and rebellion so here are the seven principles of the seeking God lifestyle seven parts of it what I did was went through the scriptures very carefully and looked up all 130 instances of seeking God and then so how can we break this and what was a characteristic and what does it mean to seek the Lord according to scriptures and there's seven parts to it the first is the humility with the help of fasting so to seek the Lord means to humble ourselves and fasting is a tool to help humble ourselves first Peter five five and six likewise you are younger be subject to the elders close yourselves all of you with humility towards one another for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble now remember he's riding this to Christian audience so they can expect even if your Christians God will be opposing you if you're proud but he'll be giving you grace if you're humble humble yourselves therefore into the mighty hand of God that the proper time he might exalt you and here's a verse from the Old Testament you see the close association of the phrase seeking God here with humbling ourselves with fasting so as are 821 then I proclaim to fast there at the river Ahava that we might humble ourselves before our God to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves our children and our goods and the Lord answered their prayers praise his name so there's a lot to be said and taught on the subject of humility I love Derek princess books on the subject there's a lot of good books on fasting there's a lot to learn go to our website and see go to see you america dot org for resources on fasting also if you want to help support this initiative promote revival across the country see america change go to christian union dot org slash cornerstone and there's opportunities there to partner to get these messages out so that more Christians will understand in the body this clarification is needed for so many so that's the first principle of seeking the Lord is humility and fasting helps with that secondly fervent and frequent prayer so Daniel 9th 3 says then I turn my face to the Lord God seeking him by prayer and please for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes so again you see this a connection of the word seeking in this case with prayer and fasting is also included here so fervent and frequent prayers part of what it means to be a Christian God expects to hear from us and for us to listen to him but it's got to be at a level and a frequency and a depth that he expects and is pleased to him Jeremiah 2912 then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear you Jeremiah 333 call to me and I will answer you and we'll tell you great in hitting things you have not known collotions 42 continue steadfastly in prayer being watchful in it with thanksgiving so you see this connection of prayer and in terms of seeking the Lord which brings revival no one people talk and teach about revival this is what's probably taught about the most is prayer and it's absolutely one of the seven parts of it so we need really a devoted fervent prayer all right the third part of the seven principles of seeking the Lord wholeheartedly is a massive intake of the scriptures I mean we got to really get our hearts in minds in the scriptures and know it deep and and strong here in second chronicles 31 here is a passage talking about Hezekiah and there are a bunch of revivals in the book of second chronicles and you see this association between seeking God and God's commandments and second chronicles 31 21 and every work that he undertook and the service of the house of God this king Hezekiah and accordance with the law and the commandments seeking his God he did with all his heart and prospered so seeking God meant living your life in accordance with the law and the commandments so this means just a complete saturation in the scriptures and you see this in us history and when there are revivals yeah preaching really centered on the scriptures you have many people reading the scriptures through and through and so this is needed for Christians if we go light on the Bible then where we just don't have the Lord's mindsets we mindset we're not able to keep the commandments we don't have the strength to keep the commandments we don't even know what they are and this is really needed we've never read through the Bible as a Christian you need to read it through at least once a year many godly people read it several times every year it's really needed to constantly saturate your mind in the scriptures to be pleasing to the Lord in every way there's another phrase I really appreciate and Deuteronomy 17 because you see here the kings were commanded of Israel and Judah they are commanded to write out their own copy of the scriptures and to do this I'm so that they would know it and that they would obey the Lord I've never done this I thought of doing at least for the first five books of the Bible right I just copy by hand the first five books of the Bible Deuteronomy 17 18 to 20 and when the king when he that is the king sits on the throne of his kingdom he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law approved by the Levitical Priest and it shall be with them and he shall read it all the days of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord is God by keeping all the words of this law and the statues and doing them that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers and that he may not turn aside from the commandment either to the right hand or to the left so that he may continue long in his kingdom he and his children in Israel what a wonderful passage showing us how the power and the depth of the scriptures are many many passages in the scriptures on the value of knowing the scriptures inside and out and if we want to see outpourings of the spirit if we want to seek the Lord knowing reading memorizing the scriptures is absolutely essential all right number four is deep and ongoing repentance this is also an essential aspect of seeking the Lord sometimes people think you can kind of pray your way out of repenting you can't do that you can pray and pray and pray but if you're not repenting of your sins there will not be any revival there will not be outpourings of the spirit God to go deep in repentance Psalm 78 34 says when he killed them they sought him they repented and sought God earnestly so you see again the connection between the concept of seeking and repenting and there it's part of it what it means to seek the Lord is to repent and seek the Lord diligently so repenting of one's sins and putting faith in God begins a relationship with them but also maintains and develops ones ongoing relationship with them examining ourselves daily and shirtsers nothing in our life just pleasing to him if there is then we have the grace of repentance and he will forgive us now passage in the New Testament or two of them first John 189 if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and truth is not in us if we confess our sins also that means repentance he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and it cleanses from all in righteousness then revelation 319 to those whom I love I approve and discipline so be zealous and repent and this was written to a church in 95 AD so we became a Christian years before but Christians need to constantly be repenting this has to be and we got to go deep and things build up in our lives and we miss out on the Lord's blessings and fillings of the Spirit when we don't repent all right the fifth of the seven principles of the seeing God lifestyle we got one humility with the help of fasting two frequent and fervent prayer three massive intake of scripture four deep and ongoing repentance and hour five at faithful obedience obeying the Lord day by day so here it says in Isaiah 51 one listen to me you who pursue righteousness that is who obey the Lord says you who seek the Lord look at the rock from which you were hewn and the quarry from which you were dug so the Lord expects that to seek him means that we're constantly pursuing being obedient to him other passages in the New Testament John 1415 if you love me you will keep my commandments to love God means to keep his commandments not primarily that we have good feelings even though he wants us to have good feelings towards him that's the test of whether we love him Romans 1 5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations so it says the obedience of faith so the purpose of us coming to faith in Christ is that we would be obedient to him and all things first John 2 4 whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments is that liar and the truth is not in him so obedience entails keeping the commands of the scriptures as well as the leadings of the Holy Spirit so it's everything we know that we need to do from the Bible plus if he puts something on your heart that he wants you to do if we don't do it then that blunts and that nullifies the working of God in our lives and I think of a pastor friend here in New York who had a situation like that the Lord had told him he wanted to preach on the subways and he didn't want to do it I mean this can be a fearful thing and he told me that he knew that God's presence had left come off of him in his ministry because of that and he repented and it has done it since then by the grace of God and it's not like in the Bible it's explicitly commanded you have to preach on the subway but this is something the Lord wanted him to do and so as you consider your own life is there something that the Lord's asked you to do if you don't follow through and do it then you're missing out on feelings of the spirit and the Lord's blessings and grace on your life all right that was number five faithful obedience number six is strong community I was listening someone recently talking about covenant and covenant is always in community and some natural state of spirits to be in a cooperation with other spirits and even God himself has a three persons of the Trinity and so same with us for us to be at our maximum to really be fully pleasing to the Lord and seeking him it's done with other people second Chronicles 11 16 says and those who had set their hearts to seek to Lord a visceral came after them from all the tribes of visceral to Jerusalem to sacrifice the Lord the God of their father so when we seek to Lord we do it with family and friends it adds enjoyment and it adds incredible spiritual power there's a lot of passages on this in the Bible I think of Zechariah 8 2020 3 here and Hebrews 10 it says we're to consider how to stir up one another to love and good works on Galatians 6 2 we're called to bear one another's burdens so in a if we're seek in the Lord we're doing with others we're encouraging them encouraging them them to repent and they're encouraging us to repent we're inviting them to prayer meetings and they're brining us to prayer meetings that we they're calling a fast and we're joining in and saying and vice versa we do it together it helps it makes it a lot more fun and enjoyable and it brings incredible spiritual power all right that was six and now we're looking at the seventh principle of the Seeking God lifestyle and that's relentless perseverance we don't seek the Lord just for a little bit and stop we seek the Lord ongoing as a lifestyle we need this perseverance now look at Proverbs 8 17 it says I love those who love me and those who seek me diligently find me so when we seek the Lord sometimes we may not get all the blessings at first he's waiting he's wanting to see if we're really pressing in and going after it I think years ago in the 90s when the Lord used me and others to lead a revival at Princeton University that I did a 40 day fast in the summer I think of 95 and the Lord I mean I was very intense very wonderful when the Lord spoke to me in a dream some months later he said do another 40 day fast then I'll bring revival to Princeton and that's exactly what happened it was glorious lasted like four or five years but I had to and then during those five years continue to additional fast and really rigorous prayer and drawing close to him look 11 9 to 13 and I tell you ask and we'll be given to you seek and you will find knock and we'll be open to you how much more with the heavenly Father give to the Holy Spirit to those who ask him so this passage in Luke is about persevering it's about keep going keep seeking keep asking keep knocking this is part of what it means to seek is to keep going after not just seek for a day but seek for a lifestyle diligently all the Christians in Christian them for the first maybe six 700 years everybody fasted Wednesdays and Fridays everybody prayed at least morning and evening sometimes three or four or five times a day having devotional times so the amount of time and focus and centering of seeking the Lord was quite profound as a lifestyle so those are the seven principles of seeking the Lord all those show up if you do a word study in the word seeking and regular concepts go through the whole Bible that's what it means and so when you see in the Bible it says time to seek the Lord or we need to seek the Lord and they saw the Lord you can be assured those seven things are happening together now as we're wrapping up this message here there are obstacles to seek in the Lord sometimes we just don't have a hunger for God we don't want to make the sacrifice sometimes ignorance maybe we confused and false theologies misunderstanding what legalism is lack faith lack of training on how to pray or read the scriptures sometimes discouragement lack of a so port structure maybe these matters are not reinforced by Christian leadership that you're around and therefore you just kind of forget about it maybe sometimes just sins of laziness or self indulgence or loving pleasure over pleasing the Lord there's lots of obstacles out there but the Lord loves to help his people when we want to do what's honoring pleasing to him so this concept and I want to make a final distinction here as we wrap this up of seeking the Lord is it isn't the old a new testament but I want to say this is distinct from what people call a contemplative spirituality sometimes with people here the term fasting or regular prayers to kind of think oh contemplative spirituality but it's not that revivals don't come out of contemplative spirituality and there's some kind of I'm not a huge fan of it to kind of depends how it's done but a lot of this thinking came after the bible was written in desert fathers in Egypt in the third century sometimes today it takes inspiration from Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism contemplative spirituality doesn't really emphasize repentance and obedience that much not that it never does but it's not centered and sometimes it emphasizes stuff like knowing your true self or being authentic and maybe there's some value to that in some places but that's not what the Lord calls us to do when he tells us to seek him wholeheartedly it's knowing the Lord's true self not our own true self so there are many reasons why our revivals do not come out of contemplative spirituality and this is a different thing in seeking the Lord so and wrapping up there are many many benefits of seeking the Lord we experience his presence and power seeking him wholeheartedly we get revivals like in America's past fillings of the spirit spiritual strength victory confidence joy rewards in this life in the next freedom from temporal judgments power to please God incredible personal ministry impact it's all sorts of it's what we're designed for all Christians should be seeking the Lord as the Lord's require and and experience all the blessings as he's designed for us it's hard though because in the west you will be going against the stream and even other Christians will tell you you don't need to do that or that's too much or that's too far and other parts of the Bennett broadcast you might see there'll be more explaining of how this could slip out if you want to see the whole teaching on what it means to expand the kingdom of God and seek the Lord go to christianunion.org slash seven keys and you have 20 lessons that goes through this bit by bit and careful detail so Christians we are to seek God wholeheartedly as it requires and not as convenient customary or comfortable otherwise we are displeasing to him even though he loves us and we will continue to see a rising tide of chaos division and morality and rebellion and can you imagine the incredible joy that will come to the heart of God and the profound chains that will come to America when large numbers of Christians return to seek in the Lord wholeheartedly I believe the Lord will bring revival to America but this is always and only preceded only happens when is preceded by large number of Christians seek in the Lord as described here you hear a lot of people and I've heard of this a lot over decades oh we're having revival revival here revival is comfort well there have been I think in some very limited geographies at different times and places but in terms of revivals where it's encompassed maybe a whole city that has not happened in the United States and gosh 150 years or something I'm not saying that hasn't been some good things that happen but maybe not since the businessmen's revival of 1857 58 so we want to see true revival in national change whole cities turning the Lord by the grace of God so thank you for being a part of the Bennett broadcast share this with other people may the Lord bless you I'm gonna pray here Father we love you you're awesome and good bless every person listening to this Father bringing grace and strength and faith and hope in life um Lord Jesus raise up in the West again many many who seek the Lord rescue us from all the things that pull us away all the entertainments and all these things that take time away from spending the time and drawing close to you Lord we need you Lord have mercy on us we pray in Jesus name amen so thanks again really really appreciate you being a part of this movement by the grace of God and take care God bless