No matter where we look today we hear people saying that it is the time to seek God through prayer. Many people across the nation are hearing the same call.
As I was thinking this morning about the many people who are feeling like it is time to seek God through prayer, my mind went to the word of God concerning prayer and I heard a scripture arise in my spirit; it is found in 2 Chronicles and is very familiar to those who pray.
‘If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.’
2 Chronicles 7:14
It is certainly a time of calling upon the name of the Lord and praying but we don’t want to forget the rest of the scripture…it is also a time to SEEK HIS FACE. Prayer is powerful, there is no doubt about it, but there’s a power that is beyond anything we can imagine when that same prayer comes from a place of intimacy with God, a place of seeking His face and not only His hand.
To seek means to desire, to seek to secure oneself to, and to require. The word ‘face’ in this scripture means to seek His presence, to turn toward Him, and to make a clear path to God.
We are to desire God, to secure ourselves to Him. We are to desire His presence, to turn toward Him and to remove anything that would stop us from being in His presence. That is what God means by seeking His face.
It is easy to pray a short prayer and go about your day; it is much more difficult to pray from a place of seeking God and seeking His face. The latter takes time, it takes focus and it takes setting your own agenda aside and surrendering entirely to God alone. It takes putting God and His presence first, before anything else, before work, family, ministry and anything else that may demand your attention. God is calling His people not only to prayer, but to Himself.
God is calling His people to seek His face like never before. That is a good thing; times of intimacy are always followed by conception and then birth.
I am excited about the times we are in. God is calling me, personally, into a closer relationship with Him as well. I know that times of intense prayer are followed by times of intense victory. I fully understand what follows times of intimacy with God and I am excited.
In Psalm 27:8, David said “when You said ‘seek My face’ my heart said ‘Thy face, Lord, I will seek.”
God is saying to you ‘seek My face.’ What is your response? Is it like David’s? Are you saying ‘Thy face God, I will seek.’ Or are you saying ‘when I get caught up at work, or when things slow down a bit?’ The time is now and by next month this time may have passed seek Him now, while He can be found, as the scripture says.
It is an appointed time to seek His face and if it is an appointed time for seeking Him, He will come to you and His reward will be with Him, wherever His presence is, healing is. Wherever His presence is, restoration is. Wherever His presence is, peace is. Wherever His presence is, prosperity is.
Psalm 27 doesn’t end with seeking God face, it ends with my favorite scripture; ‘I would have lost heart if I had not believed I would see the goodness of God in the land of the living.’
Seeing the goodness of God, here, in our life, is the fruit of intimacy with God, it is part of the reward. Seek Him now. Seek His face and See His Goodness.
