December 17, 2009
Search Suspended
Because the authorities feel that all hope of survival is gone, the search for two lost hikers on Mount Hood has been called off. I have a mental picture of God searching for us and I take comfort in knowing that He would not suspend the search. God is not the only one who searches however. Scripture also obligates us to be the ones to search for the Lord, as David charged Solomon, “If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.” (1 Chronicles 28:9b ESV) How often are we guilty of calling off the search?
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Gail;
-----Technicalities can be raised in support of or to detract from almost every statement anybody makes. So simple kindness and respect for the maker of any statement will try to support a statement in light of the nature of the point the maker means to state. So first allow me to support your point, then please allow me to present a technicality that might appear to detract from it, but which I hope only adds to it.
-----God’s search for the lost is much made through the hands and feet of the found. The lost are certainly all around us, considering that Jesus was quite clear about the road leading to destruction being broad and many are traveling it while few are traveling the narrow road to life. Therefore, the chances are greater that someone you cross paths with is lost than they are that he is found. But simply crossing paths with a lost one is not finding him. Crossing paths with what reasoning will successfully persuade him to be found is. So God’s search for the lost happens in your heart as much as it happens in their hearts. Will you continually study to be able to give good and compelling reason for the faith that is in you? Will you become acquainted with the lost one you cross paths with so that you can present the reasoning his heart is able to understand? And will you engage him in what reasoning he will allow himself to hear? If you will, then God’s search through you may not end. But swinging my point around upon a technicality of its own: through the Holy Spirit, God’s search is able to happen by reasoning within the heart of the lost without reasoning nor example supplied by you.
-----Yet does God end His search? He told Noah that His Spirit would not struggle with man forever. He told Paul that He gives up some to the depravity of their own minds and improper conduct. And there is a time when the fullness of the Gentiles have come in that He will return for Israel. Then the search will be ended, but of course, not until all who will be found have been found.
-----But like an archeological dig, when the old city has been found the digging does not stop. The knowledge of where the city was is not the knowledge of what the city was. So the more digging leads to the more finding the same as the more searching for God we do after finding Him leads to the more knowing of Him for our joy. His Word continues to search us out as we continue to search out His Word.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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