My Soul Thirsts for You

Earnestly I Seek You

Psalm 63:1-4 ESV

 

“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.

So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,

    beholding your power and glory.

Because your steadfast love is better than life,

    my lips will praise you.

So I will bless you as long as I live;

    in your name I will lift up my hands.”

 

We live in a day and time where this type of devotion to God is rarely being taught. It appears the opposite is being taught in much of the church today. Humans are being given the glory instead of God, and they are earnestly seeking after men, in place of God.

 

If you were to get on social media like Twitter, for example, you might see that many people who call themselves Christians are raising up men to god-like status, and their praise of them and their loyalty and devotion to them sound as though they worship them.

 

But it is not the names of men (or women) that we are to be lifting up as though they are worthy of our worship. We are to be those who seek after God with our hearts, and with passion, and with strong desire and longing for him and for him alone.

 

And this longing for God is not satisfied in a short time of personal devotions each day while the rest of the day is spent hungering after other things, even things that are evil and that are against God. The Lord should be sought after in everything that we do.

 

To long for the Lord in this way is to desire him above all else, and it is to make him the Lord (master) of our lives in place of self. It is to hunger and thirst after his righteousness and to want to obey him and to walk in fellowship with him, doing what he has called us to do.

 

And, it is to want to give him praise in public, but not in accolades that merely mouth words of praise, but in sharing his heart, his passion, and his desire for our lives, that we live holy and godly lives unto him in his power and strength at work in our lives.

 

When I Remember You

Psalm 63:5-8 ESV

 

“My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food,

    and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips,

when I remember you upon my bed,

    and meditate on you in the watches of the night;

for you have been my help,

    and in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy.

My soul clings to you;

    your right hand upholds me.”

 

I think most people enjoy eating. Some people who have little eat in order to live while others who have plenty may also eat for the pleasure of the taste of the food. And the fat in food is often what gives it flavor. And rich food is often pleasing to the taste, the aroma, and the texture.

 

So, for those of you who are able, if you can imagine one of the best meals you have had and the enjoyment that you had in eating it, the enjoyment we are to have with our Lord in fellowship with him is to be far greater than that. And our praise of him is to be far greater than our praise of that food.

 

And our praise of God is not to take place only during a “Praise and Worship Service” in a church gathering. He should be on our lips throughout the day, every day of the week. And he is to be on our minds and on our hearts all the time, not just at specific times.

 

If we are earnestly seeking after God, thirsting for him, thankful for his love and grace to us, and for his deliverance of us from our slavery to sin, we should ever be aware of his presence with us all the time. And we should be in communion with him day and night.

 

We should be able to hear our Lord speaking to our hearts any time of the day or night, no matter where we are or who we are with or what we are doing. And if he wakes us in the night because he wants to speak to us or through us or because he wants us to pray, we need to obey him.

 

And I am fully aware that many of you are still of the age where you are working full-time, but we must all let God be the God of our schedules. It is amazing what he can do through us when we are surrendered to him and when we trust him with our sleep, too, or lack thereof.

But I Rejoice in God

Psalm 63:9-11 ESV

 

“But those who seek to destroy my life

    shall go down into the depths of the earth;

they shall be given over to the power of the sword;

    they shall be a portion for jackals.

But the king shall rejoice in God;

    all who swear by him shall exult,

    for the mouths of liars will be stopped.”

 

When we are genuinely and earnestly seeking after the Lord, our souls thirsting for him, and we are truly worshiping him with our lives in obedience to his commands, and our lips are praising him by speaking his truths, we are going to be hated, rejected and persecuted.

 

In America, we have not yet consciously been under the threat of losing our lives for the sake of our testimonies for Jesus Christ, but there is a plot afoot to destroy us in any way that they can. If they can’t get us to deny Christ by our lives they will try to destroy us in other ways.

 

In case you haven’t noticed, they have been building a case for a one world religion for some time now. Pope Francis is one of the strong voices for this, as was Barack Obama when he was president of the USA. I believe he is still pushing this global unity message.

 

But this has been going on in evangelical Christianity for some time now, especially since the church partnered with the government and big business in turning the church gatherings into a marketplace to be marketed to the world with worldly means.

 

They have severely diluted the gospel message to the point to where anyone who makes a public profession of faith in Jesus Christ is now considered “saved” and on his way to heaven, regardless of whether or not he honors Christ as Lord or obeys his commands or dies with Christ to sin.

 

But the Lord will have the final word in this. He will one day stop the mouths of the liars. And, he is presently, through his servants, confronting those lies and proclaiming the truth of his gospel so that many will be saved before his return to take us to be with him forever.

 

And all that is going on in the world and in our individual nations is the Lord getting us ready for that day when he comes to take us home. He is preparing our hearts for his soon return, and he is turning hearts back to him, one at a time, for his glory, honor, and praise.

 

Sing to Me of Heaven

 

Songwriters: Ada Powell / Benjamin Burke Beall

 

Sing to me of Heaven, sing that song of peace

From the toils that bind me it will bring release

Burdens will be lifted that are pressing so

Showers of great blessing o'er my heart will flow

 

Sing to me of Heaven, as I walk alone

Dreaming of the comrades that so long have gone

In a fairer region 'mong the angel throng

They are happy as they sing that old, sweet song

 

Sing to me of Heaven, tenderly and low

Till the shadows o'er me rise and swiftly go

When my heart is weary, when the day is long

Sing to me of Heaven, sing that old, sweet song

 

Sing to me of Heaven, let me fondly dream

Of its golden glory, of its pearly gleam

Sing to me when shadows of the evening fall

Sing to me of heaven, sweetest song of all

 

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