Seek the LORD
Deuteronomy 4:29
If you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.
G. Campbell Morgan
1 Chronicles 22:19
Devote your heart and soul to seeking the LORD your God.
(ESV) Now set your mind and heart to seek the LORD your God.
2 Chronicles 15:2b
The LORD is with you when you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you...
Psalm 9:10
Those who know your name trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.
Psalm 27:8
You have said, “Seek my face.”
My heart says to you, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.”
Spurgeon and Puritan commentaries
https://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/treasury-of-david/psalms-27-8.html
Psalm 105:4-5a
Look to the Lord and his strength;
seek his face always.
Remember the wonders he has done...
Proverbs 8:17, 35a
I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me. Whoever finds me finds life...
Jeremiah 29:13
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Hebrews 11:6
Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
St. Augustine
O God, our true Life, in whom and by whom all things live, Thou commandest us to seek Thee, and art ready to be found; Thou biddest us knock, and openest when we do so. To know Thee is life, to serve Thee is freedom, to enjoy Thee is a kingdom, to praise Thee is the joy and happiness of the soul. I praise, and bless, and adore Thee, I worship Thee, I glorify Thee, I give thanks to Thee for Thy great glory. I humbly beseech Thee to abide with me, to reign in me, to make this heart of mine a holy temple, a fit habitation for Thy Divine majesty. O Thou Maker and Preserver of all things, visible and invisible! keep, I beseech Thee, the work of Thine own hands, who trusts in Thy mercy alone for safety and protection. Guard me with the power of Thy grace, here and in all places, now and at all times, forevermore.
Meditations “The Thirst of the Soul After God”
Let my soul ever seek Thee, and let me persist in seeking, till I have found, and am in full possession of Thee.
Hispanic-Mozarabic Rite c.700 AD
Give strength, O Lord, to those who seek Thee, and continually pour into their souls the holy desire of seeking Thee; that they who long to see Thy face may not crave the world’s pernicious pleasure.
St. Anselm Proslogium, or Discourse on the Existence of God, Ch. 1: Encouraging the Mind to Contemplate God, 1077
http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/ans/ans007.htm
Up now, slight man! Flee for a little while thy occupations; hide thyself for a time from thy disturbing thoughts. Cast aside now thy burdensome cares, and put away thy toilsome business. Yield room for some little time to God, and rest for a little time in Him. Enter the inner chamber of thy mind; shut out all thoughts save that of God and such as can aid thee in seeking Him. Speak now, my whole heart! Speak now to God, saying, I seek Thy face; Thy face, Lord, will I seek. (Psalm 27:8)
Richard Sibbes The Successful Seeker, 1640
https://books.google.com/books?id=9dsYAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA111&lpg
God is willing to be known. He is willing to open and discover himself; God delights not to hide himself. When we are in any dark condition, that a Christian finds not the beams of God shining on him, let him not lay the blame upon God, as if God were a God that delighted to hide himself. Oh, no! it is not his delight. He loves not strangeness to his poor creatures.
Obadiah Sedgwick The Doubting Believer, 1653
God hath promised his favour, and, therefore, his people may seek his favour. Nay, he hath commanded his people to seek his favour, and therefore they should seek it. It is an unadvised folly, during the suspension of God's favour, to unson ourselves, and unpeople ourselves, i.e., by denying the grace and spiritual relation which exist between us and God. That is not the way to gain favour; for when we have undone our relation of children we exclude ourselves from the expectation of favour. No, the wisest and surest way is to seek the renewing of God's loving countenance, and not to be driven away from God by our unbelief.
Alexander MacLaren Expositions of Holy Scripture
The seeking to which God mercifully invites us, is but the turning of the direction of our desires to Him, the recognition of the fact that His face is more than all else to men, the recognition that whilst there are many that say, ‘Who will show us any good?’ and put the question impatiently, despairingly, vainly, they that turn the seeking into a prayer, and ask, ‘Lord! lift Thou the light of Thy countenance upon us,’ will never ask in vain. To seek is to desire, to turn the direction of thought and will and affection to Him and to take heed that the ordering of our daily lives is such as that no mist rising from them shall come between us and that brightness of light, or hide from us the vision splendid. They who seek God by desire, by the direction of thought and will and love, and by the regulation of their daily lives in accordance with that desire, are they who obey this commandment.
By the very make of our own spirits He calls us to Himself. Our restlessness, our yearnings, our movings about as aliens in the midst of things seen and visible, all these bid us turn to Him in whom alone our capacities can be satisfied, and the hunger of our souls appeased.
He summons us to Himself by Him who is the Angel of His Face, ‘the effulgence of His glory, and the express image of His person.’ (Hebrews 1:3) In the face of Jesus Christ, ‘the light of the knowledge of the glory of God’ (2 Corinthians 4:6) beams out upon us, as it never shone on this Psalmist of old. He saw but a portion of that countenance, through a thick veil which thinned as faith gazed, but was never wholly withdrawn. The voice that he heard calling him was less penetrating and less laden with love than the voice that calls us. He caught some tones of invitation sounding in providences and prophecies, in ceremonies and in law; we hear them more full and clear from the lips of a Brother. They sound to us from the cradle and the cross, and they are wafted down to us from the throne. God’s merciful invitation to us poor men never has taken, nor will, nor can, take a sweeter and more attractive form than in Christ’s version of it: ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ (Matthew 11:28)
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones The Unsearchable Riches of Christ
We must learn to seek the Lord Himself. I mean that we must not be content with ideas concerning Him, or with propositions about Him. It is essential that we should emphasize that while doctrines and theology and understanding are absolutely vital to the Christian, it is always wrong to stop at these alone. We must go beyond them and realize that the purpose of all knowledge of doctrine is to bring us to a knowledge of the Person of Christ. As we have seen, "That I might know Him and the power of His resurrection..." (Philippians 3:10) was the ambition of the greatest doctrinal, theological teacher and preacher the Church has ever known. Without knowledge of doctrine we may become victims of a false mysticism, or simply remain babes in Christ. In order to be strong, and grow, and become virile and powerful, an understanding of truth is essential to us. But that should lead us to seek a knowledge of the Person Himself.
F.B. Meyer
Bestow upon me, O Lord my God, understanding to know Thee, diligence to seek Thee, wisdom to find Thee, and a faithfulness that may fully embrace Thee.
C.H. Spurgeon “Sovereign Grace and Man's Responsibility” on Romans 10:20-21
https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/sovereign-grace-and-mans-responsibility/#flipbook/
Men do not seek God first; God seeks them first; and if any of you are seeking Him today it is
because He has first sought you.