In Touch Ministries

Dr. Charles Stanley: You'll be pursuing God when the stars have fallen from their orbit. You'll be pursuing God when this old earth has burned up and been replaced. You'll be pursuing God. When all of us are in glory, we'll still be expanding and learning and knowing and seeking and loving and being filled and our capacity grows. When does that ever stop? Praise God, it never, never ceases.

Guest (Male): Most Christians would say they want to pursue God, but when difficulty and hardship come along, it's easy to incorrectly conclude that we must be doing something wrong. Well, today on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, we'll be reminded that anything of value takes time and effort, and the pursuit of God is no exception. Let's join Dr. Stanley for today's message.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Well, I want to talk about three things. First, I want to talk about what is involved in pursuing after God. There are several things here. The first is the prerequisite for knowing God. That is, before you'll ever learn who God is, you will have to pursue Him. You say, "Now wait a minute. Doesn't God reveal Himself to man?" He does. But remember what He said in Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, they are the ones who shall be filled."

God placed within your heart a hunger when you were saved. He opened a whole new world of spirituality to your life. Either you nourish that and pursue God and make Him Lord of your life, or you let that begin to dwindle and you cease to feed that hunger, and now it really doesn't make a whole lot of difference whether you know much about Him or not. But a prerequisite to knowing God is to pursue Him.

When you begin to pursue God, what you're going to discover is that the divine pruning process is going to begin in your life. Pruning. What does He do? He begins to expose those little shoots and growths in your life that He wants to cut off. As you pursue God and seek after Him to be like Him and to know Him, what you and I realize before long is we must be willing to shed those experiences, those habits, those attitudes, those activities in our life. Once we begin to move in and He confronts us with Himself, we don't really want anything in our life that would displease Him.

He begins the pruning process, which involves confession and repentance and an honest, intimate, and intricate evaluation of oneself. A man who is pursuing God is hard after Him, following after Him because he wants to be like Him. He wants His life reflected in his life. A man does not pursue God who's not hungry after Him. A man will not chase after God. A man will not follow hard after God who does not want what God has to offer. All of us who've even begun the pursuit know that what He has to offer oftentimes pushes out what we already have.

The third word I want you to put down is "painful" because when you begin to pursue God, it's going to hurt a little bit. There are some things you and I will never know about Him unless we are willing to bleed. Where does God lead us when we pursue after Him? Sometimes He leads us into the pitch-black darkness, and we cannot find our way out. We say, "God, where are You? Why don't You do something? Why are You allowing these things to happen to me? Why don't You give me some explanation? Lord, speak to my heart." And God doesn't say a thing.

You say, "Lord, You know I want to know You." He says, "Sure, that's why I've got you in the darkness because there are some things you learn about God in the darkness you will never learn in the light." If you pursue God, you're going to have to pay a price. Look back if you will in Philippians Chapter 3. There is a price to pay, and all these things I've been talking about really is a price.

I want you to listen to what Paul said. He said in Philippians Chapter 3, verse 3: "We are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus. Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; touching the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were valuable to me, when I weighed them on the other side of the scale with the knowledge of Jesus Christ, I counted them absolutely worthless for Christ. Yea, without a doubt, I count everything as worthless for the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord, for whom I've suffered the loss of all things and do count them as nothing that I may win Him."

And verse 10: "That I may know Him." That is, he says, "I've done all of this in order that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death." Let me ask you something: what price are you willing to pay to know God in an intimate way? You see, there's something about Him that absolutely consumes and obsesses God's people when they allow Him to do it. What is more valuable tonight than to know He is pleased with you? To know that He is revealing Himself to you?

What is it that you want above everything else? Do you want God? Paul said, "I weigh everything against Him." When I weigh everything against Him, you could put it all in one pile and the weight of the knowledge of Jesus Christ so outweighs everything else, there is no comparison. I counted everything loss, including my life.

My heart just breaks sometimes when I see people that I know are disobeying God, and I can see them just clamoring and clawing and trying to get through life. They're going to do this and they're going to do that, and they violate spiritual principles. I want to say, "Lord, I'd just like to get them by the shoulder and shake the truth into them." That wouldn't do a bit of good.

When you get your eye set on God, it is amazing how the things you once pursued are no longer important. They have some sense of importance about making a living and so forth, but they are so always on the periphery. Pursuit of Him primarily keeps them well-balanced in life.

It is amazing and He said it in Matthew Chapter 6: "When we seek first, pursue first the character of Christ within us and the control of Christ in our life, all these material things in life and all these shall be added to you in abundant proportion in perfect balance." But it is interesting that when you begin to seek these things and cease to pursue Him, you're still always having to get more. Why? Because they never satisfy. He satisfies.

When you pursue God, it brings great pleasure. The pleasure is when you're pursuing God and He's becoming what He wants to be in your heart, there's the greatest lightness in the spirit, joy in the heart. After a while, when difficulty comes, you say, "Praise the Lord, praise God, I'm getting to learn something new. Get out the Band-Aids; it's going to be tough."

And that's exactly what happens. But you see, when you begin to pursue God and He becomes the obsession of your soul, after a while, you can't wait to see what next difficulty God's going to bring you to show you something about Himself. The pain after a while becomes pleasure. And then, of course, there is that tremendous pleasure of knowing that God loves you enough to work in your life.

I think two of the things that so bless my heart when I think about Him having a will for our life and guiding our life is the fact that He loves us enough to have a will for our lives, and secondly, that He sees something within us that with His help, He can conform into His likeness. There's nothing of ourselves; it's all of Him, but He'll shape that.

When you pursue God, you'll find very shortly that you're making progress in your spiritual life. If you want to measure your progress, take a reading on your obsession for God. You take a reading on your obsession for Jesus Christ in your life, to obey Him and to honor Him and to love Him and to serve Him. You take a reading on that. If the temperature's low, you're off the path of pursuit. If it is high and He's the obsession of your heart, you're heading in the right direction.

How does a man pursue God? I'll just list them for you quickly and I think you can understand. Number one, if you're going to pursue God, the first thing you've got to learn to do is learn to talk to Him. You've got to get on a talking basis, a communicating basis. I mean not only do you talk to Him, but you learn to be quiet and listen.

Secondly, in His Word. There is no way to know Him without knowing His love letter to you and me. You want to know God? He told on Himself right here. Everything you and I need to know of the revelation of God, the essence of it is right here. The fullness of it we learn as we apply in our heart through experience what is here in essence.

I've seen people who could quote the Bible and they can just quote verses left and right and say, "Do you know God?" "Sure I know God, listen to this." They don't know God. They have memorized this letter, but they don't know Him. That's why it's important that the Word become practicalized in my life. First of all, talk to Him. Secondly, in His Word.

Third, in worship of Him. When you come to church, do you learn anything at all about Him? If you don't, you need to change your membership because God wants you to learn something about Him every time we meet together. That's my heart's desire, and my only real desire that when you walk out of this place, God will have said something to you, which if you apply, will get you a little deeper, a little stronger in your relationship with Him and a little bit more excited about pursuing Him.

Fourth thing I want you to notice is this: if you're going to pursue God, you must learn to look for Him in every experience in your life. I want you to get that because I really believe that's one of the most important keys. If you're going to pursue God, you must learn to look for Him in every experience of your life because God is in everything that you're in. Therefore, He's in that experience with you attempting to teach you something. So if it's good, bad, indifferent, cold, hot, whatever it might be, look for God.

How do you look for God? On the basis of what you're learning from the scripture, you look for the evidence of God in every single thing that's happening in your life. If you look for Him, He'll be looking right back at you. You'll see Him. You'll see, "Well, God's in this. Well, the Lord worked all this out."

A couple of folks have said to me today, "Let me tell you what's been happening in my life and it's so exciting what God's been doing." They were simply seeing God in their experience. When you see God in your experience, one thing you know about Him is that He's personally interested in you. Number two, He's guiding the circumstances of my life. Number three, He's doing something in me. Number four, He's leading me toward His goal for my life.

Once you begin to develop a keen, sensitive eye to look for the evidence and the footprint of God everywhere in your life, you'll begin to see and to experience the Word of God becoming exciting. Check out every experience you have with the book. Don't check the book with experience. Check every experience out with the book. When you begin to do that, you begin to say, "Well now, I experienced this. I wonder if God's got anything to say. Oh, there it is. That's exactly what God did in my life." What happens? Then the Word of God becomes that vital expression of God in your life. Look for God in every experience of life.

Then I think there's one other way, and that's in service to God. When you serve the Lord, the Lord will lead you into circumstances and situations that you just think, "Lord, I can't do it." I can remember the first time I just finished seminary and I'd been in my first church only three months, and I was going to start teaching in a Bible Institute and everybody there was a pastor. My subjects were evangelism eight o'clock in the morning, homiletics which is sermon preparation at nine o'clock, and ten o'clock, sermon delivery. Everybody there was a pastor.

Here was green me, and I mean green, right out of seminary, hadn't pastored a little church but three months. I knew those fellows were going to say, "Who does he think he is telling us how to do what most of us have been doing about half as long as he's been living?" But I learned something about God. I knew they were going to say that because I put myself in their place and I'd have said the same thing about me.

Those three months, I spent more probably fearfully getting ready to face about 165 preachers that knew a whole lot more about a lot of things than I did. But I learned something. I learned that God could take green me on my knees, filled with the Spirit with what He'd taught me, and He could turn them upside down, inside out, and that in two weeks, they thought I was the greatest guy in the world.

God did that. I didn't know much, I didn't have much to offer, but God will take you and you'll learn something about God in serving Him for which there is no other way to learn it. The way He works to get His will done is absolutely... I know He has as many ways of doing it. I just have to thank Him and praise Him and just bless His name and just bubble over in my heart at how intimately, personally involved He gets in our life. You'll learn something about God serving God you won't learn any other way.

One last thing: when you pursue God, remember that it's an everlasting pursuit. You won't ever get all you want, but you'll get all you can take for the moment and your ability to take it will keep on expanding. You say, "How long will that last?" When the suns go out, you'll be pursuing God. When the stars have fallen from their orbit, you'll be pursuing God. When this old earth has burned up and been replaced, you'll be pursuing God. When all of us are in glory, we'll still be expanding and learning and knowing and seeking and loving and being filled and our capacity grows. When does that ever stop? Praise God, it never, never ceases.

Now let me tell you something: who would you swap places with? The other choice is to serve the world that won't last long and leave you like an empty vacuum in your heart. I'll tell you, it is endless, it is energizing, it gives enthusiasm. You and I could go on and on, "E" after "E" after "E" unto eons talking about what God will do in your life.

One last question: if you were really honest tonight, what had you rather have if you could have anything in the world you want? I mean if God said, "You name it and it's yours," what would be the first thing you'd name? Could you say, "Lord God, I want to know You in the power of Your resurrection. I want to know You in the fullness of every experience of life that all that You are I may be able to absorb into myself, that my life above everything else will not be a blotter where men's view stops and is absorbed with me, but rather I'd be a reflector that when men look, they can't miss You"? What had you rather have than Him consuming and absorbing and possessing you? For me, I'll take Him.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Is God Himself your delight? Each of us needs to ask that of ourselves and be honest with our answer. If anything is of greater value than knowing the Lord, then it's time to realign our priorities, putting Christ in first position.

You can deepen your understanding of God and your appreciation for Him, and we would like to help. Just log on to intouch.org to find resources that can guide you in your daily pursuit of getting to know your Heavenly Father. And to review today's lesson, follow the link to "Today on Radio." Head over to the bookstore and you can order a copy of today's complete message, "The Pursuit of God." Again, log on to intouch.org or call or text us at 1-800-IN-TOUCH. To write to us, address your letter to In Touch, P.O. Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia, 30357.

Disappointment and pain aren't the signal that God is far away. Find help seeing past your heartache coming up in today's "Moment with Charles Stanley."

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Guest (Male): You're listening to In Touch. God wants us to continuously pursue Him. With a reminder for believers, here's a "Moment with Charles Stanley."

Dr. Charles Stanley: The other day I picked up something he was just really working me over good. I was fumbling through a drawer there trying to find something and I came across a sheet of paper that I suppose I meant to file it. God knew that it was where it ought to be because He knew when I was going to need it. So it was sort of my "C drawer." You see to it when you get around to it. That's that drawer. Now you've got one of those in your house, don't laugh about it. I pulled out that sheet of paper and it said: "Your present circumstances are God's tool to make you the man He wants you to be."

I stuck it back in the drawer and closed the drawer quietly. I said, "Thank You, Lord. You know what's best for me better than I know." And so I'll just keep on moving, keeping my eye on the goal. Listen, our problem is we stop pursuing when the pain becomes intense. We want God to give us a break. Now let me tell you something, don't ever forget this. Friend, when you are hurting the worst, right beyond the worst pain is the best glimpse of God you'll ever get. Learn more about how God can use pain for His purpose at intouch.org.

Guest (Male): If today's program fueled your excitement about Jesus, tell someone about it, and then share your story with us. Tomorrow on In Touch, are you facing a difficult decision? On our next broadcast, we'll hear instructions on finding clear guidance. That's Wednesday on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.