23 Bible Verses About Seeking God

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.”

Reflection: Moses speaks to Israel before they cross the Jordan, and the verses before this one describe what will come first: idolatry, scattering among the nations, and serving “gods of wood and stone” (4:28). The seeking happens “from there”, in the scattering. Verse 30 adds that in tribulation they will return to the LORD, and verse 31 gives the reason they will be received: “For the LORD your God is a merciful God.”

Jeremiah 29:13

“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”

Reflection: Jeremiah sends these words from Jerusalem in a letter to the people Nebuchadnezzar had taken to Babylon (29:1), after telling them the exile will last seventy years (29:10). They will call, pray, seek and find, and verse 14 continues, “I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes.” The phrase “with all your heart” from Deuteronomy 4:29 comes back here, addressed to people living in the scattering Moses described.

Psalm 119:2

“Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart.”

Reflection: Psalm 119 opens by pairing seeking God with keeping his testimonies. The blessed are those “whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD” (119:1) and “who also do no wrong” (119:3). A few verses later the psalmist says it of himself and asks for help to continue: “With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments!” (119:10).

2 Chronicles 15:2

“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.”

Reflection: The prophet Azariah son of Oded speaks to King Asa and to Judah and Benjamin, and his word has two sides: the LORD is found by those who seek him and forsakes those who forsake him. Asa responded by removing the idols and repairing the altar (15:8), and the people made a covenant “to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul” (15:12), with death decreed for anyone who would not (15:13). Verse 15 records the outcome: “he was found by them, and the LORD gave them rest all around.”

Matthew 7:7-8

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

Reflection: In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus places seeking between asking and knocking, and verse 8 turns all three into general statements: “everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds.” The verses after it compare God with a father feeding his son and end, “how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (7:11).

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.”

Reflection: The verse follows a comment on Enoch, who “before he was taken … was commended as having pleased God” (11:5). The writer names two things anyone who draws near to God must believe: that God exists, and that he rewards those who seek him. The chapter then continues its list of people who acted “by faith”.

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.”

Reflection: God appears to Solomon at night, after the prayer Solomon offered at the dedication of the temple (2 Chronicles 6; 7:5). Verse 13 sets the occasion: drought, locusts or pestilence sent on the land. Seeking God’s face stands among four actions, with humbling themselves, praying and turning from wicked ways, and the promise is forgiveness and a healed land.

Isaiah 55:6

“Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near.”

Reflection: The call comes with a time limit: “while he may be found … while he is near.” Verse 7 says what seeking involves for the wicked, forsaking his way and returning to the LORD, and what the LORD will do: “for he will abundantly pardon.”

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.”

Reflection: Hosea uses the language of farming. Ephraim is a trained calf that will be put to the yoke (10:11), and the people are told to break up fallow ground, land left unplowed, because it is time to seek the LORD. Verse 13 describes what they had sown instead: “You have plowed iniquity; you have reaped injustice.”

Amos 5:4

“For thus says the LORD to the house of Israel: ‘Seek me and live.’”

Reflection: The next verse tells “the house of Israel” where not to look: “do not seek Bethel, and do not enter into Gilgal or cross over to Beersheba.” Those were places of worship, and Amos 4:4 mocks the pilgrimages to them: “Come to Bethel, and transgress; to Gilgal, and multiply transgression.” Verse 14 puts the command in moral terms: “Seek good, and not evil, that you may live.”

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.”

Reflection: Zephaniah addresses “all you humble of the land, who do his just commands”, people already obeying, and still tells them to seek the LORD, righteousness and humility. The promise is hedged with “perhaps”, and verses 1-2 set the call before “the day of the anger of the LORD” arrives.

Psalm 27:8

“You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ My heart says to you, ‘Your face, LORD, do I seek.’”

Reflection: The psalmist answers a command: God has said “Seek my face”, and his heart replies that it does. Verse 4 has already named what he seeks, “that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life”, and the next verse asks, “Hide not your face from me.”

Psalm 63:1

“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.”

Reflection: The psalm’s heading places David “in the wilderness of Judah”, and the verse uses that setting for its image: a dry and weary land with no water. Verse 2 recalls seeing God “in the sanctuary”, and verse 6 has David remembering him on his bed “in the watches of the night”.

Psalm 42:1-2

“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?”

Reflection: The psalmist compares his longing for God to a deer’s thirst for water. Verse 4 remembers leading the crowd “in procession to the house of God”, and verse 6 remembers God “from the land of Jordan and of Hermon”. Meanwhile others ask him all day long, “Where is your God?” (42:3).

Psalm 105:3-4

“Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice! Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually!”

Reflection: The psalm opens with a call to give thanks, and seeking belongs to that praise: glory in his name, rejoice, seek his strength and his presence “continually”. The same lines appear in 1 Chronicles 16:10-11, in the song David appointed Asaph and his brothers to sing (1 Chronicles 16:7). Verse 5 goes on, “Remember the wondrous works that he has done.”

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.”

Reflection: James writes to readers whose quarrels come from “passions … at war within you” (4:1) and whom he calls “adulterous people” for their friendship with the world (4:4). Drawing near to God comes with cleansing hands and purifying hearts, and the passage ends, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (4:10).

Lamentations 3:25

“The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.”

Reflection: Lamentations mourns the fall of Jerusalem, and this verse comes soon after “his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning” (3:22-23). Seeking is paired with waiting, and verse 26 adds, “It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.”

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.”

Reflection: The verse before calls the LORD “a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.” Knowing his name and trusting him go together here, and the reason given is what he has done: he has not forsaken those who seek him.

Psalm 34:10

“The young lions suffer want and hunger; but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.”

Reflection: Hungry young lions are set beside those who seek the LORD. The psalmist speaks from his own case, “I sought the LORD, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears” (34:4), and verse 9 says the same of those who fear him: they “have no lack”.

Matthew 6:33

“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Reflection: Jesus ends a teaching on worry about food, drink and clothing. Verse 32 describes the other kind of seeking: “the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.” The command sets an order, the kingdom first, and “all these things” refers back to the food and clothing.

Acts 17:27

“that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us”

Reflection: Paul speaks at the Areopagus in Athens, where he had seen an altar “To the unknown god” (17:23). He says God set the times and places of every nation so that people would seek him and “perhaps feel their way toward him”. The same sentence adds that God “is actually not far from each one of us”, and Paul quotes “some of your own poets”: “In him we live and move and have our being” (17:28).

Romans 3:11

“no one understands; no one seeks for God.”

Reflection: Paul introduces a string of quotations with “as it is written” (3:10), and this line among them echoes Psalm 14:2, where the LORD looks down “to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.” Later in the same letter Paul quotes Isaiah 65:1 about people who found God without looking: “I have been found by those who did not seek me” (Romans 10:20).

Revelation 3:20

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”

Reflection: The words are addressed to the church in Laodicea, which says, “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing” (3:17). Christ is the one knocking, and the one who must open is anyone in that church who hears his voice. The verse before gives the setting: “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.”