Seek and Find

By Odon Bulamba

 

Luke 19:10, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost”.

 

Today is the 21^st April 2013 and this day reminds me of the day my father past away, at 10am.  Yesterday I started to think, if someone like my father could die, what about me?  My father was tall, not short like me and very strong and intelligent.  He was among the people that the world at that time used to consult about banking business; he was proud of himself and capable of doing/trying to do anything at anytime and never had fear, he could confront any situation and no matter what; he could face it.

 

What was my dad seeking in all of this?  When he said he was a consultant, what was he after?  Was it a way of sharing his knowledge or was it pride or was he showing off when he told people that they could go to him for knowledge?

 

Today we are talking about seeking something and find it. How often do you search for something? If you seek something, you must know what you are looking for.  I remember one time I was just a child and used to do scouts and the master said, bring a bayonet and the words he used in French could also mean something else.  I went and brought something else and his answer was to smack me for bringing the wrong thing saying, “If your ears don’t work, use your brain.  How can I use this to cut meat?”

 

My father one time told me to get cotton but it sounded like august in French and I took the august month from the calendar.  He asked me, “who gave birth to you?”  Sometimes you bring things expecting people to be happy but they look at you like you are stupid.

 

In the theatre at the hospital, it is up to Ange (the nurse) to know what materials the surgeon will need.  He will call out the name, and Ange will know which one to bring and when she brings the wrong instrument, she feels embarrassed while the Dr is trying to help someone.  You feel shame to tell Dr you don’t know what he wants.

 

Jesus came down to seek the lost, nothing else, he didn’t come down to look around, He had a target, a mission; to seek for something.  Your purpose for being alive must have also have a mission, a call, ask yourself, why do I exist, why am I alive, why did God send me in this world, do I also need to seek something?  Rev 2:25says to hold onto what you have until Christ comes back. 

 

When a child is born, he/she is given a new name.  When Zoe was born, her parents decided to call her Zoe.  Could Zoe say no to that name when she was born?  She accepted that name, no matter what, that is your name, your identification.  When your mum calls you and you say no, she gets angry and if she insists and you don’t come, she will come after you. 

 

When you were born again in Christ, Jesus gave you a new name and that new name will identify you as a child of His and it is written in the book of life.  Once God has found you, He says, this is my child, my descendent and when He needs you and calls you back and you say no, how will He feel?  He will feel like the mum when her child refuses to respond.  Very often when God calls us, we don’t respond not even in a negative way, we just keep silent. 

 

One time there was fireworks in Hamilton and we had a dog called Tammy who was so afraid of the noise, she ran inside and hid under bed.  We couldn’t get her out from under the bed, she sought her refuge there and wasn’t going to move.  When things go wrong, where do you hide yourself?  Jesus decided to come down, to come close to us, to deal with the situation on the earth, although He was inspiring the prophets to talk, people wouldn’t listen so He decided to come down Himself.

 

Where do you seek your solution?  Many people find counselors, their family members and ask for a solution and your uncle who is not God and can’t resolve your issue, will ask more and you tell all your stories while God is looking at you and knows your stories and understands you  from a-z; “why don’t you just come to Me for a solution?”  After leaving, your uncle immediately tells someone and its gets passed on and then it is spread everywhere and may as well have been written in the newspaper.  You put your effort in searching after a solution in uncle who was unable to help you.

Some mothers go everywhere to look for a child and once the child is born, they find their child is naughty, and does not respect anyone.  The parent wonders why God gave such a burden.  You sought a child, and were given it but were unable to educate the child and later you blame God who gave you that child.

How often do students fail? Zoe used to play piano and I was really impressed by her little fingers that could play in such a way that made me feel joy.  Her little fingers made me feel joy!  She is talented but decided to leave the piano behind and now she doesn’t play anymore.  Zoe is good at net ball, dancing, tennis - all those talents on Zoe.  Many people will try and only have a tenth of what she has and it’s up to Zoe to take what she has and use it, because if she doesn’t use it she will lose it.  God our Father gave us gifts and talents and everything we need, some of us are short, some are beautiful, some are ugly and we have to know how to manage what God has given to us. 

When we find a tough situation, we have to seek a solution.  We have two ways: (1) look for something that I had which has now been misplaced and I need it, or (2) I have nothing and I have to find it. The second is the most challenging: When I have nothing, and I need it, I have to plan where I will find it and if there is no planning, I will get lost. 

God gave you the Word of God which has been living for eternity, it’s very old so people believe they should seek for is something new and fresh.  90% of Christians put their faith in books and put their Bible aside, they read books written by people and put aside God’s inspiration.  For example, “When day and night cease”, the author said, because God knows who will go to heaven and who will not, why work for my salvation because no matter what I do, I’ll go or not go.  These people are trying to refrain Christians from progressing and to stop people from worrying about the time that is coming and want to stop people from working on their salvation.  Christians want the easy way.

In my day, when someone needed to change the tv, we had to stand up and change the channel because there was no such things as remote controls but today we have an easy way with the remote.  If you press the remote and the channel doesn’t change, you keep pressing the buttons because too much effort to stand up and change the channel. This is the same with Christians; they want the easy way with their Christian life while it was a big effort for Jesus to come down to seek the lost.

A few years ago there were prisoners in Mexico who decided to dig underground in order to escape.  When it reached the stage to come out from their tunnel, they found themselves in front of a judge in a courthouse.  While all 75 prisoners were seeking a way to leave the prison, they were sent back to jail because they were seeking the wrong thing.

God gave you birth, gifts, eyes, intelligence, and a body which is the temple of Holy Spirit; now you have that body, how do you use it? What have you lost that God has given you so far?  Maybe you used to love singing Christian music but now you listen to the edge on the radio in your car instead and you feel that Christian music is now boring.

Whatever God gave you, you have to use it or you will lose your crown. Rev 3:11, “I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown”.

When you lose money, you look for it; when you lose your clothes you try to locate it.  To seek for something means to put effort and time in order to find it.  When you don’t make an effort, that’s when you will have spirit of giving up. Giving up today is a big sickness in church and all because someone says something.  There is a big contradiction between our nature and the nature that God wants us to live.  Many people don’t want Word of God any more, they prefer something else but the day of judgment is coming and God will ask, “you where is what I gave you?” On this day the Lord comes and He says, “I sought you and found you and called you but you don’t listen to me, now I have to take you to the judgment and I will judge you”.  In the same way a parent can tell a child, this is what you did and growl them, God is going to growl us.

In Revelations is tells us about the last days; the sun is going to come down 7x and the power of the sun will multiply by 7.  If the sun is power of 20V, it will now be 140V in that day.  The pain on our bodies will be 7x higher than today and God will say all mountains, trees, houses will vanish and everything will become flat and then the sunbeam will become so hot.  If you take your pan with water onto the stove on high, the water will boil and overflow onto the stove.  The earth is surrounded by water and with the heat of the sun, the water will start to boil and the soil will mix with it and become a porridge.  As you know, hot porridge burns.  With that porridge and nothing around you to protect you since everything is flat, humans will panic, start to shout and run to find a place to hide but imagine running in boiling porridge; your legs will sink into it and running will be almost impossible but God will remove death and allow people to suffer because they wouldn’t listen.  People will cry for help but it will be too late

This is the time (today) to seek for God’s help.  We always pray for our family and friends but do we really mean it?  Do you really care? When you are seeking for something, how much effort do you put on it?  When you are looking for a job, you use lots of time and effort and when you are preparing for exams you spend lots of time and effort because when exams come you know it’s only you who can sit the exam.  Now the world is going through a test, are we really ready to find what God wants us to find?  He completed His mission and found us, the only reason we continue to exist is to glorify God.

People think they will find joy in alcohol; there is no joy in alcohol, you only lose your money, time, joy and then feel sick.  When someone is going to steal, they believe they will have something good to show others (e.g. they decide to steal a blouse so they can look good in front of others)  but once caught, they will be ashamed and gain nothing and even if they get away with it, no one will care that they have a new blouse.

What is important is what will please God.  Very soon we are going to die, we can prepare our funeral but we won’t be there, our soul will stand in front of God and He will ask, “what did you find when I sent you to earth?  What will we give to Him?  You can’t give your excuses.  We have to remember that death is not only for old people, young people die too, you can fall asleep and not wake up.  Are you ready because you don’t know the time when Jesus will come for you?  When you die, your body will go to the mortuary and then they will send you under the ground and they give you as a barbeque to the worms and they will celebrate.  How do you feel about worms eating you? Although we appear look so good and we embellish ourselves, but when we are 95 years old we will no longer be pretty and will be walking with difficulty.  Our bodies deceive us, should we invest in our bodies that deceive.  Invest in the soul, seek first the Kingdom of God and the rest will follow but if you seek the world first (cars, houses etc) we will lose because God occupies the last chapter and you won’t take those things to God.

Ask God what He wants you to seek and make sure to bring people with you to heaven.

One friend told me that he should drink alcohol because he won’t be able to drink when he dies.  Alcohol, lying, cheating etc, is not worth it.  My pastor will not take me to heaven, my mum, the author of books cannot bring you to heaven; you have to prepare yourself for heaven.