My Soul Thirsts for God

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? (Psalm 42:1–2)

What makes this so beautiful and so crucial for us is that he is not thirsting mainly for relief from his threatening circumstances. He is not thirsting mainly for escape from his enemies or for their destruction.

It’s not wrong to want relief, and to pray for it. It is sometimes right to pray for the defeat of enemies. But more important than any of that is God himself.

When we think and feel with God in the Psalms, this is the main result: We come to love God, and we want to see God and be with God and be satisfied in admiring and exulting in God.

A likely translation of the end of verse 2 is, “When will I come and see the face of God?” The final answer to that question was given in John 14:9 and 2 Corinthians 4:4. Jesus said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” And Paul said that when we are converted to Christ we see “the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

When we see the face of Christ, we see the face of God. And we see the glory of the face of Christ, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:4 and 6, when we hear the story of the gospel of his death and resurrection. He calls it “the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Or (verse 6): “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

May the Lord increase your hunger and your thirst to see the face of God. And may he grant your desire, even today, through the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

John Piper 

Bowing to the Only Wise God

“To God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.” JUDE 1:25

 

PONDER THIS

Jude said the apostate rejects authority or despises dominion (1:8 KJV). What did he mean by dominion? Who or what is dominion? Look in verse 25: “To God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.” When apostates despise dominion, they despise the only wise God who alone has that dominion. An apostate literally hates God. Look in the last part of verse 4 in chapter 1: they “deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.” As a reminder, these are not deniers of God outside the church. These are deniers of God inside the church. These are people who despise dominion and sit on church pews, teach in seminaries and teach in Bible colleges. They are rebels at heart. They do not want anybody to box them in. Their battle cry is freedom. They don’t want anybody to tell them what they must believe or how they must behave.

How would you explain what it means to despise dominion?

What are some ways you might be tempted to do this? How can you guard against it?

PRACTICE THIS

Make a list of ways God exercises His dominion in the world. Make notes of ways you can submit to and praise His dominion in these areas.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

 

The Gospel of Self-Effort

“Then they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.’ They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.’” GENESIS 11:3-4

 

PONDER THIS

I heard a lady speaking on a talk show in Memphis about the gospel of self-effort. It’s a contradiction in terms because there is no good news to save us in our own effort. This is what happened at Babel: Babylonian builders who were trying to make a name for themselves said, “Let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach up to Heaven; let us make us a name.” These people took mud and bricks they had fashioned with their own hands, and then they began to build this high rise to Hell, fashioned from their own wit, their own wisdom, and their own ingenuity. Verse three begins, “And they said one to another.” They never consulted God. Instead, they pooled their wickedness and their ignorance. They dethroned God and enthroned their own intellect.

This is our struggle today as much as it was theirs. We’re still trying to do it with brick and slime, only our slime and brick are computers. We are seeking to build our utopia. We’ve substituted our own wit and wisdom for God, and we’re trying to build a golden age with minds, machinery, and money, and it can’t be done.

What are some ways you have valued your own ways over God’s?

What are the things you are striving for right now? Are you depending on God or trying to achieve for yourself?

PRACTICE THIS

Talk to a mentor or friend about the goals you have set for yourself and ask your friend to hold you accountable for enthroning God in your plans.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

When Majesty Walks In

“I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, saying, ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last,’ and, ‘What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia: to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.’” REVELATION 1:9-11

 

PONDER THIS

Sometimes we talk too casually about our Savior. Let’s suppose it’s Sunday morning. People are coming into the sanctuary. The ushers are at the door, greeting people and giving them a smile and a handshake. The call to worship is given and the pastor stands in the pulpit to intone the morning prayer. And suppose he prays something like this: “Lord Jesus, we’ve come today to give You glory, honor, and majesty. Lord Jesus, we pray that You’ll show up here today.” This type of prayer is not uncommon.

Suppose then, the back door opened, and down that aisle comes the same One John saw on Patmos. His hair is white and glistening, whiter than snow. His face shines with a shekinah glory, brighter than the sun. His feet glow as if in a furnace. His voice is deafening. He’s wearing regal robes, and He walks down the aisle.

What would you do? You’d fall on your face before Him, would you not? That’s what John did. John said: “When I saw Him, I fell on my face like a dead man.” May God forgive our irreverence! We do not take these matters seriously; we forget the majesty of God so quickly that we would be shocked if we truly beheld Him.

What are some things that remind you of God’s glory? What makes it easy to forget it?

What would change if you remembered God’s glory all the time?

PRACTICE THIS

Spend time pondering God’s glory and majesty. Praise Him for who He is.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers