Cause and Effect

Years ago, I decided to pursue an opportunity to serve and give back to our country.

My views and understanding on military have changed quite drastically since then, but the motivation was to give back to those who had given to me and to give to those who yet didn't know they needed it by doing what I could to help protect them.

I was 34 at the time I pursued a position in the National Guard. Clearly, my enrollment age was quite different than most who pursue an armed forces position, however I was still in great shape and my age was seen as an advantage to my recruiter since I had received knowledge that only years of living can provide.

So far, my qualifications led me to take the ASVAB test. This was right at the same time I had begun my walk again with Jesus. Up until this point, reading and standard academic learning platforms were my nemesis, however my scores on the ASVAB test gave me an opportunity to serve in any capacity of the National Guard I desired. I don't share this in a prideful way, in fact, certain information is very difficult for me to process, but the Lord has designed my mind in a way where engineering makes sense to me. Cause and effect, weight distribution, kinetic energy, and physics are generally much easier for me to understand than many other subjects. My test was comprised mainly of math, mechanics, and science. To my recruiters surprise, I was after the Wisconsin Chaplaincy position.

At the time, our country was returning home from many years in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. Although my test scores were high, it was a double shoulder dislocation that ultimately kept me from pursuing this position. Today, I thank God for the double dislocation that kept me out, but also for such an incredible opportunity. As I said, standardized schooling and it's very narrow path of teaching children information and wisdom did a lot of damage to my own personality which created a pathway in my mind to steer clear of higher learning for fear of failure. Achieving a test score that gave me keys to any branch within the guard allowed me to understand how well I can process cause and effect and how this ties into our relationship with God.

One of the most prevalent themes in scripture is covenant faithfulness. God has never changed who he is and his love for humanity, but our response to him often changes how we experience life. Cause and effect is found all throughout the pages of the Bible.

Jesus, in an attempt to be found inconsistent in his wisdom and teachings, was challenged by high ranking leaders in Judaism to explain which was the greatest commandment given by God. His answer brought them all the way back to the beginning of the Bible, but he said it in a language that was hard for these leaders to understand. These religious elite knew the law, meaning they had spent their life understanding the Hebrew Bible. They knew the Torah and the Levitical Law, the prophets, and even the Psalms, but their knowledge took over the place of their love of God. Their own knowing, (pride) had hardened their hearts towards the people of God. (selfishness). This is simple cause and effect.

Jesus was brining them back to the classroom of simple spiritual physics.

This is recored in Matthew 22:36-37

Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?

Jesus replied, You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.

This is a language that they couldn't understand because it is garden language. This is the same conversation God had with Adam and Eve found in Genesis 2:16

"The LORD God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the LORD God warned him, you may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die."

Seeking life, knowledge or wisdom apart from God will always lead to death. He is life, he sustains life and he put in to order all things that sustain life. Knowledge and wisdom apart from God will always lead us away from the the source of life, thus leading to loneliness, pain, confusion, chaos, and fear. In other words, death.

There was a reason Jesus called these people whitewashed tombs. (Matthew 23: 27-28)

Clean and beautiful on the outside, but filled with dead bones and uncleanliness on the inside. The effect of these people seeking the knowledge of God without knowing the heart of God caused them to lose compassion for humanity while the Bible is drenched with God's compassion for humanity.

This concept of giving God the first fruits of our lives is an easy cause and effect response when we realize not only what he has done for us, but the goodness that is found in living the way he has designed us to live. He knows our greatest source of life will be found in knowing and being known by him. He is the tree of life from whom flow the rivers that give and sustain true life from all of eternity. There is cause and effect written on almost every page of the scriptures, but we can also feel cause and effect in our bones, in the way we experience life, in our motives and our relationships.

My challenge today is to ask ourselves if we are truly seeking the kingdom of God first and above all else? The results we experience are simply spiritual physics and covenant faithfulness with lead us closer and closer to understanding and living in the spirit-filled life that produces a heavenly result here on Earth. Listed below are scriptures that repeat the calling spoken of in the garden to choose God and to be faith full because of his faithfulness and the effects that follow.

Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Proverbs 8:17 I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.

Deuteronomy 4:29. But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.

1 Chronicles 16:11. Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

1 Chronicles 22:19. Now set your mind and heart to seek the Lord your God. Arise and build the sanctuary of the Lord God, so that the ark of the covenant of the Lord and the holy vessels of God may be brought into a house built for the name of the Lord.

1 Chronicles 28:9. And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.

2 Chronicles 15:2. And he went out to meet Asa and said to him, Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: The Lord is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.

2 Chronicles 7:14  If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

Acts 17:27. That they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.

Amos 5:4. For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel: Seek me and live.

Hosea 10:12. Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.

Isaiah 45:19 I did not speak in secret, in a land of darkness; I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, Seek me in vain.  I the Lord speak the truth; I declare what is right.

Isaiah 55:6 Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near.

James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

James 4:8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

Jeremiah 29:13. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

John 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

Lamentations 3:25. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.

Luke 12:31 Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. 

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

Matthew 5:6. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.

Proverbs 14:12. There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.

Psalm 10:4. In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, There is no God.

Psalm 105:4. Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually!

Psalm 119:10. With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments!

Psalm 119:2 Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart.

Psalm 119:45. And I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts.

Psalm 14:2. The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.

Psalm 27:4. One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

Psalm 27:8. You have said, Seek my face. My heart says to you, Your face, Lord, do I seek.

Psalm 34:10. The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

Psalm 34:4. I sought the Lord, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.

Psalm 40:16. But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation say continually, Great is the Lord!

Psalm 63:1. A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah. O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Psalm 9:10. And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.

Romans 3:11. No one understands; no one seeks for God.

Zephaniah 2:3. Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, who do his just commands; seek righteousness; seek humility; perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the Lord.