Are you ready for a DEEP tourney run?
As March approaches everyone wants to go deep into their tournament brackets. March Madness is so much better when you are the one experiencing it in person instead of watching someone else enjoy the journey. So what is the secret to going deeper this season? Are you willing to give up everything? To give all you have to achieve the thing you value the most? Is it truly worth it?
If we are talking basketball, then I am going to tell you what you don’t want to hear right now. If you are giving your entire heart and all your time, love and passion for some fame and a championship ring, then the answer is NO! I have been to the end of this rainbow, and the honest to God truth is that this pot is full of fool’s gold.
Just a couple days after winning a championship, the void you finally filled has actually increased in size. If you don’t win another championship next season, then everyone will believe you are a failure. The pressure increases, the expectations double, the target on your back has increased exponentially, and if you let it, the desire for more fame will completely steal your joy.
Am I telling you that it is wrong to win championships? Are you kidding me?
We play to win championships, but We live to bring Jesus Glory!
Can they be one in the same? Absolutely! Seek God with all your heart and He will add all things. Seek Him diligently and He will reward you. Seek Him privately and passionately and He will honor you publicly. I can give a lifetime of testimony to these truths!
Let’s look in the Book for Proof.
I yearn to have a heart like David. To be a man after God’s own Heart! Not just another man, a man that cries out to the deep longing to touch the Heart of my King.
David wrote in Psalms 42:7, “Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me”. It is a cry coming from God’s King, who has been driven out of his own palace by his rebellious son Absalom. Sadly, Absalom has lost himself in a desire to become king. All Absalom cares about is winning and the fame that comes with wearing the signature ring of a king.
In the verses leading up to David’s statement “deep calls to deep,” David says he has been thirsting for the presence of God “like a deer panting for streams of water”. His entire life, David had fought, worked, danced, and did all that was within him to bring the Presence of God in the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, the City of David, and now he is on the other side of the Jordan yearning to be in God’s presence once again.
When most people use the word ‘deep’, they have no idea of the depth David is talking about when he uses “DEEP”. In the United States, we live in a shallow minded world that calls everyone great and considers someone able to take a team deep into a basketball tournament numerous times the GOAT.
I heard a powerful message from Pastor Robert Madu that focused on the ‘ER’ in Deeper! David was a man who went “Deeper” than anyone had gone before in his desire to please God. So when David said “Deep calls to Deep”, he was a man that completely understood the sacrifice it took to reach a depth that could touch the Heart of God!
Jesus told Simon, James, and John, take me out to the Deep! When they obeyed, their lives were changed for eternity. Not for only a couple days.
Jesus told the Samaritan woman that all she needed to do was drink from the depth of the water from inside Him and everything would change forever! She obeyed and she was never the same.
Over and over again, Jesus pointed for us to follow Him into the Deep!
Moses, which means drawn from water, was a picture of Jesus. Moses would be drawn from a river, then later parted a sea while leading God’s people out of captivity. Jesus was drawn from water as He was baptized by John the Baptist, then changed the game for everyone by going Deep! He willingly went into the grave, but He didn’t stop there, as He went to Hell and kicked tail, rising up out of the depth of our sin to set us free from captivity!
This post season when your focused on going deep into your tournament. When you want to go deeper than you have ever gone before. Maybe just maybe, you should strive to have a heart like David instead of Absalom’s shallow mindset of achieving personal gain and glory.
Seek First the Kingdom with All Your Heart, by going deeper than ever before after God, and All God’s things will be added!
A lake is a valley filled with water. The deepest of all valleys is the ocean. Hillsong Music’s song ‘Oceans’ speaks beautifully to this desire to go deep after God’s Presence. It has touched the hearts of millions. Here are a couple of my favorite verses from this song.
“You call me out upon the waters, the great unknown where feet my fail, and there I find You in the mystery, In oceans deep my faith will stand.” “Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander.”
Here is a link for you to enjoy the song yourself.
Do you desire to be valley made? Do you have a desire to go deeper than every before in order to bring Glory to your Savior?
Are you as thirsty as a deer that has ran as hard as he could run and is now panting desperately for a drink water?
The Bible has an interesting story in Ezekiel chapter 47. He has a vision of a river flowing from the Temple, the location of the presence of God at that time. He was led by an angel step by step into the deep where he has to swim to survive. He makes it back to shore and as he looks around he sees trees. The trees bear fruit year around and the leaves have healing properties. In order to experience this amazing fruit, you must take your journey deep into this river. What an amazing picture of what God desires for each of us. This same vision is spoken about by Jesus in John 7 and again by John in Revelations 22.
My prayer today is that we all become desperate for the deep and the we thirst for more of you, King Jesus! I want to stay in your presence and show the world what they are missing! I want to Show them your Glory!