Witnessola.

Witnessola: |Seek|Humble|Love|

Watch this quick video: Witnessola

I love watching these BlueFish TV videos. I like to try to use them in my youth group whenever possible.. they are comical, however, they leave you thinking.

All I can think of when I watch this video is "how true!" How many times do we actually share something that we truly believe in and not something that we simply "know." It is easy to spit out something you have learned but do you really understand it or do you really believe it?

I have been reading through the Old Testament, which should not be a surprise to anyone who knows me, since I have a fascination with the Old Testament, and I was reading the book of Zephaniah. Zephaniah is a book about God's people in Judah who are falling from Christ. There was a point when King Josiah was ruling when they were seeking after the Lord, however, they have fallen to their old ways.. once again. They are relying on earthly things and not Christ.

Zephaniah 2:3 says:

• NIV: Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger
• The Message: Seek God, all you quietly disciplined people who live by God’s justice. Seek God’s right ways. Seek a quiet and disciplined life. Perhaps you’ll be hidden on the Day of God’s anger
• Contemporary English: If you humbly obey the Lord, then come and worship him. If you do right and are humble, perhaps you will be safe on that day when the Lord turns loose his anger.

There are three things that really stick out to me in this one simple verse that I think says it all.. We must SEEK the Lord; we must come HUMBLY before the Lord; and we must do what the Lord commands: LOVE.

Okay, so what do these words really mean? Well, I looked them up..

To seek something means to:

1. To go in search or quest of
2. To try to find or discover by searching or questioning
3. To try to obtain
4. To try to attempt
5. To go to
6. To ask for; request

I started thinking, can I HONESTLY say that I am in a state of seeking the Lord? In Deuteronomy 4, it says that we will find the Lord if we seek him with all of our heart and with all of our soul. Our heart and soul are essentially what make us who we are.. so if I am not seeking him with ALL, not some, but ALL of who I am, there is a very good chance that I am not going to find him.. Just like the definition says, am I really trying to obtain, or discover who Christ is?

To be humble means:

1. Not proud or arrogant; modest
2. Having a feeling of insignificance, inferiority, subservience
3. Low in rank, importance, status, quality
4. Courteously respectful

Wow... now there is a reality check.. It is not the most natural thing in the world to allow yourself to have a feeling of "inferiority" in this world, when the culture is constantly saying it is all about "me, me, me!" We are serving the Lord of this world! He created everything in sight.. how can we NOT have a feeling of inferiority. How can Christ work in our lives if we can not humble ourselves before him and "courteously respect" him? James 4:10 says, "Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up." 2 Chronicles 7:14 says, "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their

wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

To love means:

1. A profoundly tender, passionate affection
2. A feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection
3. A love affair; an intensely amorous incident
4. To need or require

I have already written in my first post about the types of love, and how important they are.. but my favorite definition of love in the dictionary is the last one.. "to need or to require.." Wow.. I am working daily on strengthening who I am in Christ as well as my relationship with Christ.. and in the past few months, I know that I have definitely started to feel, probably for the first real time in my life, that not only do I need God in my everyday life, but I require him. I do not feel right when I am not living my life with his purpose and will for my life as my motivating factor. I feel empty when I don't take time to spend time with Christ. My love for the Lord has grown so much in the past few months, and it is crazy exciting.. but he commands us to love him. Just read 1 Corinthians 13.

So, if you go back and watch the video after reading this.. I guess my question is "Do you really think God intended us to just spit out information at people to try to get them to heaven?" No! I do not think he did, not in the least bit. He has laid out these three steps for people who rejected him and wanted nothing to do with him, in order that they might find their way back to Christ be spared on the day of judgement. If he laid this out for them, I surely think it would hold true for us as well! If we seek after Christ, humble ourselves before him, and Love him, then when we have the opportunity to share Christ in simple every day ways.. we are not going to have to spit out information that is "head knowledge," but we will be equipped with a life that we can use as our testimony to share with others on who we really believe God is.. not who we are told he is.

Do you really think that God wants us to just hear things about him and just reiterate it and

tell other people? Don’t you think they will just get confused or know you are not genuine?

We must learn it ourselves! If we want to share our faith, we must take the time to invest ourselves into our own faith.. we must be able to say, “I am seeking the Lord, I am humbling myself, and I love the Lord and others!” Then sharing our faith may come a little more natural and look like we actually know what we are talking about!