God is not your spiritual Santa Claus! Yes God does give you gifts, and His gifts are all good, but God does not want you to be more interested in what He gives than in knowing who God is. Santa Claus comes, leaves gifts under a tree or in a stocking and in a flash He is off to another house. Santa does not stick around; he is not interested in spending any time with the recipients of his gifts, as a matter of fact, he’s so not interested that he only comes once a year in the dead of night when all are fast asleep. Santa Claus does not want any type of relationship with you. Yet you want to treat God like Santa. Focusing primarily on the gifts and not on the Giver; you’re consumed with His Presents and not His Presence.
God is no Santa Claus, He desires above all else to be in intimate relationship with you. And that is what you should also desire – close fellowship and communion with God and to know God intimately. The only way to know God intimately is to spend time with Him. Study His Word, communicate with Him through prayer, and like David, you are to seek, inquire for and insistently require God so that you may consistently be in His Presence (see Psalm 27:4). Make God the priority over things. Pursue God, crave Him and put aside your desire for things. Turn away from the ‘what’ and fix your eyes on the ‘Who’.
In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says to, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” [see Matthew 6:33]. In other words, what you should want most, above all else is God’s Kingdom – the manner in which God operates; His ways, His Truth, His system – and His Son Jesus Christ, Who is the Righteousness of God. And that verse ends with a promise, “and all these things will be given to you as well.”
When your motive is to be in His Presence, it’s then you receive everything that you need.
Seeking God’s Presence, not His Presents ©2013 Shelley Johnson 28-Jun-13
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