Crave Him

 DEVOTION

TO HEBREWS

CRAVE HIM

Heb 11:5-6

5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And 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.

NIV

We looked into Enoch and how he was no more, and the great testimony that he pleased God. He was commended as one who pleased God. However, now we must turn our attention to this glaring statement, “Without faith, it is impossible to please God”. We are also given the reason, that anyone who comes to God, must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. First, what does earnestly mean? One of the meanings of the Greek word, ekzeteo is to seek out, search out, investigate, crave. Here it is, we are to crave God, as we cannot get enough of Him. There is one of our favorite fast-food places that advertise, their customers are cravers, and we do crave those “sliders”. That is the sense of craving God. Wanting more and more of Him. We are to seek as much of Him as we can possibly get, and that is because we have faith. We have lived by faith from the first moment we were transformed from being in the dark to being in the light. We do not know any other way to live. We know it is impossible to have one foot in heaven and one foot on earth. We know we cannot have this dual citizenship, being a citizen of the kingdom of God, and still holding dear to our earthly citizenship. All we know is faith, and we have been revealed truths about faith and preached about it. Faith Always Insists Transformation Happens. Because we are people of faith, we have been and are always being transformed to be more and more like Jesus. This is one of the results of living by faith, but another is that it pleases God, and He will reward us because we crave him, we earnestly seek him out, wanting to know more and more about Him, and wanting more of his influence on our hearts. That is one of the definitions of the Greek word, charis, translated as grace. The divine influence upon our hearts and how that is reflected in our lives would mean being a person of faith. Because God influences our hearts, how could that not reflect faith in our lives? Surely, God does not influence us to live according to the ways of the world or to put our trust in earthly things. Faith means we trust Him and follow Him, learn from Him, and reflect His influence which can only lead us to increase our faith, and in doing so we please him. There is no doubt the ultimate reward is eternal life, but in the process of life, He also rewards those who crave Him, with all these things the pagans run after, whatever that looks like. However, we do not have faith so we can be rewarded, but because we simply crave Him.