Seek Him Early

[stephen]

"With my spirit within me I will seek thee early" (Isaiah 26:9).

Let me ever seek God. And let me seek Him early. Let me not first embark in
an enterprise and then ask His blessing upon it. Let me not first make all
my arrangements and then ask Him to guide me. Let me not first take counsel
with myself and then ask Him to ratify that counsel.

This is a matter of unspeakable importance, and it is to be feared that
there are very few who seek God when they should. It is but a mockery of God
to enter a path of one's own election, and then ask His guardianship.
A man engages a woman to marry him, and then tells it to God and asks His
blessing. A man takes his departure for another city or another land, and
when his trunks are packed he looks to God for His preserving care.
Far be such a habit from the spirit that is within me.

Let me seek God early.

Let me not put Him down fourth or fifth in the list of friends whose
counsel or whose aid in any concern I propose to seek, but in everything,
great and small, let me give Him the pre-eminence; let Him be all to me.


-- Walter Fred Vaughn, "This Is the Victory," originally published in the January 4, 1953, Pentecostal Evangel

 

[Coconut]

Looking to Jesus.... (Hebrews 12:2 ESV)

"And as for ourselves – well, I think perhaps we are more tempted to look at ourselves than anything else! This is one of our real Christian exercises. We have continually to remove our eyes from ourselves and everything to do with ourselves. There is nothing more discouraging than this self of ours, and nothing more misleading. Our own judgments are all wrong, and so are our thoughts and ideas. They are not God's thoughts. We must take our eyes off ourselves, but not look out into space and be vacant. "Look off unto Jesus," and you know how that sentence is finished – "Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." Did you start this thing? Are you a Christian because you decided to be a Christian? Well, the Lord help you if that is so! No, He started this thing. Are you not glad that you can say: "It was the Lord who found me. It was the Lord who put His hand on me." What He said is very true: "Ye did not choose Me, but I chose you" (John 15:16). He was the author of our faith, and it says that He is the finisher – He will finish it."

T. Austin-Sparks from: The On-High Calling