Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. Well, here it is. You should be listening to this on Friday, December 16th. I think for most of us, it’s hard to believe that we are almost at the end of another year.

Well, we just finished our tour of the War of Special Forces. Our team started in Green Bay, Wisconsin back in August and just finished in Bonita Springs, Florida. And now we’re home at our home base here in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, where at the moment last I checked, it’s seven degrees. So all of you that are listening in warmer parts of the country, be grateful that you’re there. But anyway, we had a wonderful tour, just a wonderful tour. And we were just thrilled with what God did. Several high points, I think, the 45 that were saved and shared in Michigan several weeks later, near 20 of those I understand were baptized there at Beth Haven Baptist Church. We think even last week we had in Bonita Springs, Florida, over 100 teenagers every single night. Youth group probably would run about 30, so most of those young people that came were from the area and they’re of course in the midst of follow-up right now. Wonderful week in so many places and many of you are listening.

From the different places. I won’t begin to mention them because if I do, I’ll miss somebody. But for those of you that were a part of our War of Special Forces list last fall, we just wanna tell you that it was a wonderful tour. Every week God worked, every week lives were touched, and we’re excited about what God is doing in raising up a generation of young people that are dedicated to total surrender and total dependence. Well, a recent podcast, some of you may have heard, I talked about discouragement, and I talked about the fact that

Perhaps even when you signed the pledge you thought, I can’t do this. Well the truth is, I’ve thought about our pledge. Our pledge really is what the Christian life’s all about. And it’s impossible unless we look to Jesus to enable us. And I think you’ve heard that theme, we emphasize that, we’ll continue to emphasize it because looking unto Jesus is the key. But I wanna put it in a different picture. The Bible uses a lot of different pictures to teach us the same truth.

There’s a verse in 1 Chronicles 16:11: “Seek the LORD and his strength, seek his face continually.” There are things that God asks us to do all the time, and although everything the Bible commands us or exhorts us to do is important, certainly the things that God says we need to do all the time are really important. So what does it mean to seek God’s face? Because young person, here we are at a Christmas season.

And it is really easy to get your eyes off the Lord. It’s easy to get distracted. It’s easy to look to other things to meet your need. So what does it mean to seek God’s face? Because whatever it means, you need to do it all the time. Well, actually, it’s not too hard, because think back to when the Bible was written. If you saw somebody’s face, you know what that meant? You were in their presence. Now today, we got FaceTime and Skype, and you can communicate with people. But even that… is no substitute for being in their presence. Sometimes I’ll tease about the fact if when I’m away from my family, if I were to Skype, I mean, usually we don’t for several reasons, we don’t have internet here at the house. But even if we were to do those kind of things, that’s no substitute for being in their actual presence. You know, I can hug my computer, but it’s nothing like hugging my wife. There is something about the presence of someone you love. I think we all understand that. So seeking God’s face is really seeking His Manifest presence. Now, young person, we live in a world that probably doesn’t really understand this, but you connect with God, if I can use that word, in the spiritual realm. We live in a world that exalts the sensory. There’s so many things today that are out there trying to cause our senses to go haywire, if we can say that. Cutting edge roller coasters, all kinds of wild different flavors.

We live in a world that caters to our senses, and many people live for that. They live for the sensory. But that is not where you connect with God. The Bible tells us in John 4:24: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” The realm where we connect with God is in the spiritual realm. Have you ever had that moment where you got right with God? You took a step of faith, God intervened, and all of a sudden you realize, in a way, perhaps it’s been a while, since you recognize that you are in the presence of God. That was God manifesting his presence in your spirit, and that is where we fellowship with the Lord Jesus, where we have a relationship with him. So you say, well, how do I seek God’s face? Well, we could spend a lot of time talking about it, but could I simply say, the Bible, I think, makes it clear that you seek his face by wanting it. You want his presence. You want fellowship with God. You come to recognize that nothing satisfies like the Lord Jesus. And you want fellowship with him. If any man thirsts, Jesus says, let him come unto me. So you’ve got a thirst. I will pour water on him that’s thirsty. So the Bible makes it clear that when we get thirsty for God, when the poor and needy seek water and there is none, their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them. I the God of Israel will not forsake them, Isaiah 41:17. So we know the Lord will respond to a hungry heart. But not only do we need to hunger after him and thirst after him,

He says after that verse, if any man thirsts, let him come to me and drink, he that believeth on me. Friends, in order to fellowship with the Lord Jesus, we must hunger for him, desire him, but we must also believe or rest or depend upon him. Rest in the reality that what God says he will do. If you are thirsty, expect him to manifest his presence. Expect him to fellowship with you. Expect him to meet your need. So those are the two aspects, to hunger and thirst, but at the same time to rest, to trust, to depend upon. Now I know this is a subject I could literally spend hours on because it’s a tremendous subject, but here at Christmas time, don’t get distracted with all that’s going on. Keep your eyes on the Lord Jesus, seek his face, desire his reality, his presence, his fellowship, as 1 John chapter one talks about. And simply hunger for him, thirst for him, and at the same time expect him, because he said, if any man thirsts.

Let him come to me and drink. I will pour water on him who is thirsty. God will meet your need if you hunger and depend upon him and rest in his promise. Well, it’s been a joy to spend a few minutes with you and thank the Lord for you, Thee Generation, a generation God is raising up that believes in total surrender, total dependence.