There’s nothing better than a best friend!  You might say a spouse is your best friend.  Maybe one of your adult children is your best friend.  Maybe a sibling is your best friend.  Maybe a co-worker is your best friend.  Maybe a school classmate is your best friend.  I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who didn’t want to have at least one good friend.  There’s something special about sharing in a relationship with someone else.  There’s usually that one person that we just enjoy being in their presence.  Can I give you some good news?  God loves you and wants to have a relationship with you!  In fact, it’s not just about a relationship with you, but He wants to be the presence in your life.

David wrote Psalm 105.  Part of this Psalm is actually words of a hymn celebrating the Lord’s presence.  Here’s part of this hymn of celebration that David includes in Psalm 105:  Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.  (Psalm 105:1-4, NIV)  In the words of this hymn that David shares I see three things we can do to enjoy God’s presence in our lives.

Seek.

God wants us to seek Him.  What’s something that you just get a craving for every once in a while?  Ice cream?  Your favorite recipe that your grandma used to make?  Chocolate?  If you know me very well at all you know that my craving is Tombstone Pizza (I love sausage and pepperoni just in case you’re looking for a little gift to give me).  Every once in a while I just have to have a Tombstone.  This is what it means to seek God.  We’re to have this craving for His presence.  David says:  Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.  (Psalm 105:4, NIV)  Isaiah 55 says:  Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near.  (Isaiah 55:6, NIV)  Hosea 10 says:  …it is time to seek the Lord, until he comes and showers righteousness on you.  (Hosea 10:12, NIV)  Jesus talked about seeking:  “…seek first his kingdom and his righteousness…”  (Matthew 6:33, NIV)  It is quite clear that God wants us seeking His presence.

Let’s look at verse 4 again real quick:  Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.  (Psalm 105:4, NIV)  Always is a key word here.  We can’t just seek Him out for an hour on Sunday morning.  We can’t just seek Him out when things get a little rough in life.  No, David says to always seek God’s face!  Just think with me here for a second.  As you live out this stay-at-home order right now does your life feel a little empty?  Maybe you’ve been craving too many Tombstone pizzas and not enough of the Lord.  Jesus tells us straight up that he was sent so that we would live a full life, not an empty life.  Get back to craving His presence.  Take some time today to seek His face and be filled with the full life.

Worship.

Worship isn’t just for Sunday mornings.  We are to live lives of worship.  Anything that brings pleasure to God is an act of worship.  Let’s go back to Psalm 105:  Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts. Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.  (Psalm 105:2&3, NIV)  We’re to sing to Him…sing praise to Him as an act of worship.  “But I can’t sing,” you say.  Guess what?  Neither can I.  But I don’t sing for me, and I certainly don’t sing for you.  I’m here to sing to God.  He is the audience.  So, go ahead, let it rip!  After all, as we seek Him we’re told to rejoice.  Sounds pretty exciting to me.

Worship is not merely a requirement we’re obliged to perform, but an all-out experience of the heart and soul before God.  Jesus drew this picture for us in John 4 when he said:  “…a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.”  (John 4:23, NIV)  To worship in spirit means that we realize we’re in the presence of God.  It’s not about worshiping at a certain time or in a certain place, but knowing that we’re before God at any time and in any place to just bring a heart of worship.  Worshiping in truth conveys that we come before Him genuinely and boldly rather than to just show off.  Every single day we have an opportunity to meet the King of kings and the Lord of lords.  So sing it!  Shout it!  Take a moment today and just worship in spirit and truth.

Tell.

As you seek Him and worship Him you live against the backdrop of what the Father has done for you through Jesus Christ.  And the more you live against that backdrop the harder it is to keep it to yourself.  The first verse of Psalm 105 says:  Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done.  (Psalm 105:1, NIV)  Think about what God has done for you in Jesus Christ.  Way back in the beginning of our Bibles, at the start of the human race, Adam and Eve had a perfect relationship with God.  They had everything they could possibly want.  They shared this perfect connection with the Creator of the world.  But, Adam and Eve felt like they needed more, and sin entered the world.  There was no longer a perfect connection, and God couldn’t bear to leave it that way.  So He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to bring us back to Him.  So…does God love us?  It’s kind of a rhetorical question at this point.

Who can you tell about Jesus?  Think about all that you have to share.  How about some of these:  A love that can never be fathomed.  A life that can never die.  A righteousness that can never be tarnished.  A peace that can never be understood.  A rest that can never be disturbed.  A joy that can never be diminished.  A hope that can never be disappointed.  A glory that can never be clouded.  A light that can never be darkened.  A purity that can never be defiled.  A beauty that can never be marred.  A wisdom that can never be baffled.  Resources that can never be exhausted.  We’ve got a lot to tell…let’s get to work!

Friends,

Brad