Yes! There is Good News! December 16, 2021

Yes! There is Good News!
by Bill Rollins
12.16.21

Sometimes, friends and brethren, as I sit to write another article, I am overwhelmed by the width, the depth, the length and, oh yes, the vastness, of the number of topics we might pursue when considering these articles. In many ways, God’s word is infinite. I am convinced that no human being could ever exhaust the study of the things our Father has for us in His word. So let’s just pick up the thread we have already started.
In our previous article I mentioned that Jesus quoted from the prophet Isaiah saying, “These people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.” (See Isa. 29:13 and Matt. 15:7-9) In this quote, Jesus was railing against the Pharisees and teachers of the law, but I must ask the question, does this apply to us today?
Each and every one of us must answer this question for ourselves. Growing up in a rather large metropolitan area on the eastern seaboard, I was taught to accept those things that were imparted to me in my religious studies. Sometime later I was challenged by a teacher to question the ideas that had been drilled into me. I started to see some major incongruities and hypocrisies in those things I had been taught. I fled from religion but still kept a loose understanding of God in my heart.
It was about 7 years later that I felt like God was drawing me back to Him. I fought that feeling, that calling of God, for another 2 years. God was patient! God was persistent! I had to look into His word for myself and in that word, I found so many wonderful things that I had no recourse but to answer His call. I will be very honest with you, in that day I wanted nothing else but a true and close relationship with my Heavenly Father and with His Son. I have not changed my mind.
I believe that the 27th Psalm might say it best. This Psalm was written by King David and he was known to be ‘a man after God’s own heart’. Here is what David wrote in verse 7&8, “Hear my voice when I call, O LORD; be merciful to me and answer me. My heart says of you ‘Seek His face!’ Your face, O LORD, I will seek.”
David put it this way in Psalm 24:5-6, “He will receive blessing from the LORD and vindication from God His Savior; for such is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek your face, O God of Jacob.”
How about you? Have you ever considered it your life’s goal to seek the face of God and so find a close and personal relationship with Him? The word ‘seek’ in the previous scripture literally means to ‘beat a path toward’!! I think we understand what it means to beat a path toward something. If we walk through tall grass to get to the barn only once, we merely disturb the grass. But if we go back to that barn through that tall grass again and again and again, we begin to beat a path through the grass. And my friends, so it is with God and with His Son. Never be satisfied with a so-so relationship. Beat a true and everlasting path to Him; oh what joy that will bring! Seek His face.
Bill Rollins 12-10-2021