The world goes after gold. But the gold a Christian seeks is the wisdom and knowledge of God. I should go hard after such wisdom. Sadly, it is the tendency of my flesh to undervalue the wisdom and knowledge of God, and overvalue things that are easier to be had. No wonder the book which is so chock-full of wisdom begins with repeated exhortations to heed wisdom’s call and resist the tendency toward naiveté and simplicity. Neglect and complacency are the enemies of wisdom and understanding. To take my ease and be satisfied with my current understanding is a death knell for my soul. Rather I am called to a pursuit, a search, a quest for the wisdom and knowledge of God. To give up on this hunt is to heed the call of fools, which ends up in destruction. But to pursue wisdom and explore out its depths is to inherit treasures far beyond any earthly find.

I remember, as a kid, watching a television show about the discovery of a sunken treasure. From the ocean floor were brought up all sorts of valuable treasures. Gold coins, precious jewels, rare artifacts – they were worth millions. How exciting it was to imagine discovering such treasures. Afterward, I would pretend I was diving for these treasures as I swam down to the depths of my swimming pool. The show was exciting in part because of how hard these treasure hunters had to look in order to find it. They tried and failed many times before they hit the mother lode.

But no sunken treasure has enough gold coins to compare with the value of wisdom. Yet shinny things are often much more enticing than knowledge and understanding. God knows that simpletons like me are easily enamored with golden trinkets and so He calls out with a loud voice – “wake up! Don’t be fooled by gold – seek wisdom, get understanding, buy it and do not sell, keep it and it will bring joy and life.”

Thankfully, God’s call has awakened in me a desire to heed the warning and seek wisdom. But where am I to find it? There are many possible sources for attaining wisdom – many voices, many scholars and teachers. If I go to a bookstore to search for wisdom there are thousands of books willing to sell me their insights. But which of them should I choose? They all sound wise. They all offer plausible ideas. How am I to know which is true wisdom and which contain folly? Again, thanks to God, I have a guide, a rule directing me to the right place to dig for wisdom – “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

This bit of knowledge is very helpful, but I have another problem. There is a deep chasm preventing the progress of my quest for wisdom. The problem is that I don’t have the fear of the Lord. Honestly, I can say I want it, because it is right and true and holds great promise. I might even say that by the grace of God, I have a degree of the fear of the Lord. But how much do I truly tremble at His Word? Isaiah and John saw the glory of God and fell down flat, undone. Job was rebuked by the Lord and he repented in sackcloth and ashes, utterly silenced. My fear of the Lord is nowhere near theirs, and so I ought to be sober about how far I have entered into the beginning of wisdom.

And the fear of the Lord is just the beginning of wisdom. Not only is attaining the fear of the Lord not assumed or easy to attain, but getting it is only the beginning of wisdom – not its end or breadth, or depth, but just the door leading into a vast, infinite universe of the delightful wisdom and knowledge of God.

Therefore, while I have a map for wisdom, with the fear of the Lord as the “X” marking the spot to dig, the obtaining of wisdom is hardly automatic. Just because I know that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom does not mean that I have much of it. It only means I know where to begin to look for it.

Am I making this too hard? Am I making wisdom out to be too hard to attain? After all why would God commend and command wisdom and then make it almost impossible to find? Has God taken something so essential to my life, so essential to my joy and concealed it? Indeed I believe He has.

“But where can wisdom be found?
And where is the place of understanding?
Man does not know its value,
Nor is it found in the land of the living.
The deep says, ‘It is not in me’;
And the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’
Pure gold cannot be given in exchange for it,
Nor can silver be weighed as its price.
It cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir,
In precious onyx, or sapphire.
Gold or glass cannot equal it,
Nor can it be exchanged for articles of fine gold.
Coral and crystal are not to be mentioned;
And the acquisition of wisdom is above that of pearls.
The topaz of Ethiopia cannot equal it,
Nor can it be valued in pure gold.
Where then does wisdom come from?
And where is the place of understanding?
Thus it is hidden from the eyes of all living
And concealed from the birds of the sky.”
Job 28:12-21

“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,
But the glory of kings is to search out a matter.”
Proverbs 25:2

“At that very time He rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and said, “I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight.”
Luke 10:21

“But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory;”
1 Corinthians 2:7

So no, I don’t think I’m making too much of the concealed nature of true wisdom. It remains true that the very wisdom I need for life and happiness, the wisdom that is necessary to avoid destruction and despair, is beyond my reach.

In the gospel, however it has been made known. Paul speaks of his ministry as the administration of a mystery. He spoke of his preaching the gospel, the message of the cross of Christ, as the revealing of all the wisdom which had for ages been concealed. Before Christ, wisdom was hidden beyond knowing. In Christ, the fullness of knowledge and understanding – the treasures of wisdom – are made manifest. What was obscured is now illuminated. What was mystery now has a solution. Christ is the wisdom from God and in Him are all the riches of this most precious wisdom from God. And the Lord has chosen to make Him known through the gospel so that I might know Him and enter into all the riches of this treasure trove- that I might inherit all the promises and blessings stored up in Christ. What glory – what riches are mine in Christ!

As a Christian I have been given the key to knowledge and understanding. I have been given a place to find and enjoy the treasures of wisdom. I have been given Christ – crucified for me. The world would never have thought of such wisdom, in fact it remains an enigma to those who reject the gospel and see only foolishness in the cross.

So having received the gospel, has my pursuit of wisdom ended? Have I entered in so that I may rest from the journey? No I cannot rest. The nature of treasure is still the same, it is valuable thus precious and rare. And so the hidden treasures of wisdom in Christ remain, in a sense, concealed in obscured. They’re hidden in Christ. The difference is, before Christ I had no access – regardless of how hard I tried to attain it. In Christ I have access – but still I must dig. The diamonds of wisdom and understanding are available to me in Christ – sadly, I often fail to seek them. I have received Christ through faith, yet the fullness of understanding is progressive and corresponds with the efforts or neglect I engage in. If I seek the treasures of Christ in the Word – reading, meditating, praying, asking, and pondering – they are there to be enjoyed. If I do not, I will miss out.

So the fear of the Lord is still to be pursued, and the blessings of wisdom are still to be acquired – and all the more vigorously since I have such a sure source and a certain place to dig. God delights to give me His treasures as I look to Him – so I must look.

Look then, O my soul. Set your mind on things above were Christ sits at the right hand of God. Delight yourself in all the treasures of the full assurance of understanding the knowledge of God – the glory of the mystery of the gospel – which is Christ Himself. Amen.

Jude 24 is such a hopeful verse, “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy.” I am often dismayed at how rarely and how briefly I glimpse His glory so that I can rejoice in it. The eyes in this earthly body of mine just don’t have the capacity for beholding glory. Even when, in His mercy, God gives me a spiritual glimpse, its brightness fades quickly. Such glances are short refractions of glory, dimmed, and clouded. It is necessary for God to limit my view, because while I live in the body, if I were to get a direct view, I could not stand. I am simply unequipped to look at God. I could more easily stare directly into the sun and suffer fewer ill effects than if I looked directly into the glorified face of Christ. But I have the promise in Jude, that one day, Jesus will change my body, and I will have new eyes that have improved capacities – I will be able to stand in the very presence of His glory and look! I will not be destroyed. I will not shield my eyes. I will look and be filled with great joy!

Until then I wait, and I seek as many foretastes of His glory as I can. The place I look for, and find, these tastes in is in the Bible. God has revealed Himself in His Son, and His Son is revealed to me through the Spirit inspired Word, by Spirit empowered reading and meditation.

But O, how weakly I perceive glory, even when I put my eyes to His Word! How much glory there is in there, and how little I see it. How small is my capacity to observe and to preserve a view of His glory in His revealed Word.

This condition is inherent in all humanity. I take some solace that having limited perception is ordained by God for as long as I reside in my body. Even though the Bible is drenched in glory, and drips words about the glory of Christ, I only see His reflections. Even Mary, who was favored by God and blessed to carry the Son of God in her body, was limited in her perceptions.

Consider what she heard and what she asked of Gabriel. Gabriel left the presence of God to give her the message that she will bear the Christ. Here are a few of the glorious things he tells her about Christ. He will be great. He will be called the Son of the Most High. He will be given the throne of His father David. He will reign forever over the House of Jacob. His kingdom will have no end. Consider again, for a moment, some of the implications of these statements. He will remain forever. He will be the son of the Most high. As a Christian, living two thousand years later, I probably understand what that means better than Mary did at the moment she heard it. Nevertheless, I would think that such statements would elicit certain questions from her. How will He reign forever – won’t He die like every other king of Israel died? How can any man be called the Son of the Most High? These were perplexing and amazing statements!

But like all of us, Mary’s mind grabs hold of the more immediate, earthly question, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” Her question is not about the one who would be called great, but about how it would take place, and technically how it could be possible.

There is nothing wrong with her question. It is relevant. It is appropriate. And it receives a full answer. But it reminds me so much of how I read glorious Christ-centered revelations that speak of His majesty and beauty, yet blindly pass over these glory statements and instead fix on the earthly practical parts. “Husband’s love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” How many books are written to help us apply this verse to our marriages – as well they should! But how quickly I pass over the Christ-displaying, kingdom oriented eternal purpose of Christian marriage to get to the practical application of loving my wife. All scripture is like this. All of it reveals Christ. It uses all my earthly circumstances, but constantly draws my attention heavenward, “…keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on the things of the earth,” Colossians 3:1-2. But gravity pulls my view downward and just as quickly as I get a heavenly glimpse, my attention is back on the immediate concerns of the day.

So what am I to do? By the grace of God and by the power of the Holy Spirit I shall strive to set my mind on things above by looking intently into the Word for those breaking moments of glory in which Jesus is revealed to my soul. I will treasure these moments. I will also try to be humble, like Mary, and accept that God has ordained the days of my life which include living with limited capacities and narrow vision. I will strive for much, but accept whatever frequency and whatever degree God permits.

“He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime; moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor – it is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will remain forever; there is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it, for God has so worked that men should fear Him. Ecclesiastes 3:11-14

So be it, Lord Jesus.

This year my wife discovered and introduced me to at a terrific show on the Food Network called “Good Eats” It’s a cooking show. It’s informative and instructional like other cooking shows but it is so much better because its host, Alton Brown, provides extremely interesting historical and scientific information about the process of cooking. On top of that, the show is very entertaining, fun, silly, and captivating.

But what I think is most compelling about the show is that Alton Brown really loves “Good Eats.” His passion for good food is evident in every show – and he’s not afraid to make his personal tastes and preferences known. He treats food with such enthusiasm that he almost makes me willing to eat artichokes or blue cheese - almost.

In some respects Alton’s job is easy. That’s because food really is good eats. We all have appetites and we all love food – it tastes good. Making me want to eat chocolate chip cookies is like shooting fish in a barrel.

God made food to be good. He made me like the taste of food – especially sweet food like honey. Proverbs 24:13 says “My son, eat honey for it is good.” Okay! Here’s a command that’s easy to obey. Honey is good, and I’m willing to speculate that God allows substitutions in this recipe. “My son, eat chocolate for it is good… My son, eat steak for it is good,” mmmmmmm steak. God is the one who made honey good eats. But He doesn’t stop there. God is good and His good gifts, like tasty food, are to be enjoyed, but something else needs to happen when I eat tasty food. I need to know something else when I enjoy the taste of honey on my tongue. I need to know that wisdom is to my soul, as honey is to my taste. Proverbs reinforces this truth.

“Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise,
And apply your mind to my knowledge;
For it will be pleasant if you keep them within you,
That they may be ready on your lips.
So that your trust may be in the LORD,
I have taught you today, even you.
Have I not written to you excellent things
Of counsels and knowledge,
To make you know the certainty of the words of truth
That you may correctly answer him who sent you?

Tasting wisdom, eating wisdom, is “good eats” for the soul. Eating good food is pleasant on my lips, but eating wisdom is pleasant deep within. Eating food is a pleasant, but not very long lasting – I consume a dish of ice cream in maybe five minutes – if I try to make it last. But wisdom, when eaten and digested can be pleasant forever. God’s councils and knowledge are excellent and they have the spiritual capacity to increase my trust in the Lord – which is eternally nourishing.

The wisdom of God is vast and comes in many forms, flavors, and dishes. The wisdom of God can be enjoyed in bite sized snacks, or dined upon in elaborate feasts. But whatever its form, or however it is prepared, the effective ingredient is always Christ. Jesus is the wisdom of God,

“But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, ‘LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD.’” 1 Corinthians 1:30.

Considering Jesus Christ in all His glory is the eating of wisdom – and it is Best Eats!

Lord thank you for your goodness, your kindness and your generosity. Thank you for making honey sweet to the taste. Please help me to enjoy food as a sweet reminder that wisdom is such for my soul. And grant me a tongue that has the capacity to taste and enjoy that which is truly good. Destroy, I pray, my lively taste buds for worthless things that compete for my appetites. Change me to enjoy the wisdom of God – the glory of Christ – so much that competing desires would no longer appeal to me. Give me truly good eats to satisfy my soul in Christ. In His name I pray. Amen.

One of my motivations for putting pen to paper when I meditate on the Word of God is to save myself from thinking lightly about the riches of God. My joy in reading and pondering God’s Word fades quickly when I don’t write down my observations. If I move too quickly over the Word I’ll think lightly of them. But if I slow down and let them sink in, they gain weight. Writing out my thoughts slows me down – it requires me to think more deeply about the words. Not only has the discipline of writing caused me to give more weight to the Word, but it also helps me to handle the Word in a more fitting way, in a manner that reflects the treasure chest of glory that it truly is.

Every single day I experience the profound mercy, kindness and forbearance of God. If I could see the true condition of my life and my heart, without a self-defending, blind eye toward my own sin; if I could see my sin like God does, I would not think so lightly about His longsuffering forbearance! I praise God that He is a covenant keeping God, upholding the value of Christ’s righteousness, granting me forgiveness on His behalf. Otherwise, if God did not uphold Christ’s righteousness for me, I would quickly be overwhelmed by the wrath of God stored up day after God-forgetting day.

How easily I forget about God’s mercy and kindness and presume upon His mercy. Not just for my own sin, but for His forbearance toward all the sins of mankind. There are times when the earth reminds us of God’s impending wrath and judgment against sin. When we face such reminders we are sobered. But often, in my case, such sobriety is short lived and I return to my mercy-forgetting, kindness amnesia. I return to a state of comfort-expecting, difficulty-despising forgetfulness.

O my soul, work at not thinking lightly about God’s kindness to you. Ponder His forbearance both in His common blessings, and all the more in His wondrous grace granted to you in Christ! Lord, please help me to lift from your Word weighty rocks of truth and remembrance. Let me put them in my pockets so that throughout the day their presence will be felt, keeping me from thinking lightly about your grace to me in Christ. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.

I will probably never have the honor of the poor widow. God has put me in the place of the one who gives out of surplus. How humbly then, should I give? I should never compare my giving with the world’s – who thinks that a fraction of a percent is a huge sacrifice. No, I should compare my giving with the widows and humbly confess, “I have only done my duty.” The honor of giving goes to the widow, not to those who put in large sums of money out of surplus.

But even though this particular honor is unavailable to me, I should nonetheless be taught by her example. Jesus commended her for her faith which put in all she had to live on – leaving her to depend on God alone. She must have laid hold of a promise like Job 22:24-26…

And place your gold in the dust,
And Ophir among the stones of the brooks,
Then the Almighty will be your gold
And choice silver to you.
For then you will delight in the Almighty
And lift up your face to God.

In this sense I suppose I can “buy” delight in God. I can put in my treasure and “purchase” eternal rewards. I can put it all in and sever my heart’s attachment to the things of the world and connect it up with the things above.

If God continues to bless me with surplus it might not be possible for me to put it all in financially, so this particular honor will have to be reserved for someone more worthy. But there are other things I can put in. Certainly I have little surplus of time – that can go in. Certainly physical strength is limited – that can go in. My personal reserves of emotion, vigor, and love are hardly vast – they can all go in to the praise, honor, and worship of my God.

O Lord, give me a heart of faith that longs to “put in all I have” in exchange for you as my treasure.

In the name of the Son of God, Jesus my reward. Amen.

O Lord, how easy it is for me to sin and dishonor you, despising your name. Thank you for this warning from Malachi. It reveals how my heart tends toward despising your name. Help me to take heed and remember the two tendencies that quantify what it means to despise your name. Help me to hold onto this knowledge, because just as the priests asked incredulously “how have we despised your name?” I fear that I may also be blind not realizing when my heart drifts and I begin to despise you, my wondrous and awesome God.

1. To despise is to dishonor God by offering lame service. Each day has many assignments from you, Lord. Some are big and some are small. Do I go about my work limping, or do I run the race set before me, so as to win? How do I engage my heart in offering service; as though God needed me, or as one who is the beneficiary of your abundant grace? Do I dishonor God’s grace by limping along half-hearted?

2. To despise is to “sniff at” the good food God gives disdainfully saying, “how tiresome it is.” Woe is me if I find God’s food tiresome or noxious. God has set before me precious treasures, greater than all gold and silver. His Word is filled with the wisdom and knowledge of God. It is ripe for the picking. Am I too tired to pick? Does the fruit seem unappealing? Is the treasure it contains not worth the digging?

To despise my God, all I need to do is offer half-hearted service and fail to seek God as my greatest treasure. How guilty I am of that! The truth is my heart, by its nature, is cold and hard – it does not joyfully serve and it sniffs at God’s food disdainfully. Praise God that the cure for a hard heart is found in God and not in me! Only one thing can change my heart, keeping me from despising God. God must reveal His glory thus melting away my hardness and banishing my overcast spirit. God reveals the prescription for a hard despising heart, it is to see God as the one who says “from the rising of the sun even to its setting, My name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense is going to be offered to My name, and a grain offering that is pure; for My name will be great among the nations,” says the LORD of hosts. Likewise it is to see God as He is, a great king, “‘…for I am a great King,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘and My name is feared among the nations.’”

Lord Jesus, open my eyes to your glory and melt away my fog. Let me see your glory and set my feet to running with joy, delighting myself in the abundant feast you’ve called me to enjoy in you. Keep me from despising your name, preserve and protect me – use your Word, remind me and provoke me when I fall asleep or lose my appetite for what is truly worth the eating. Thank you for your grace and your promise to complete the work you started in me. You are good, I want more of you.

I ask in Jesus’ name, for the glory of the Father. Amen.

Psalms 107: 42-43

This Psalm displays the loving kindness of the Lord through how He delivers His people in their distresses. Four different kinds of distress are described; hunger and thirst from wandering in a wilderness, the misery of being under the yoke of hard labor, suffering the affliction that results from our own foolish and rebellious ways, and the grave danger of being on a ship tossed about on high seas.

The loving kindness of God redeems and rescues them from these desperate conditions resulting in the joy and gladness of His people. The upright see His saving hand and are glad, but the unrighteous, in contrast, shut their mouths. What accounts for the difference between how God’s people react to calamity and rescue and how the unrighteous react?

It is common to hear the unrighteous blame God for calamities. There are, for every disaster, those ready to accuse God for His apparent absenteeism on behalf of those who suffer. They often charge Him for failing to stop the calamity. What would they say of God if they knew that the reason He does not stop such calamities, is not because He lacks the strength, the will, or the power, or that He is somehow absent or unaware, but because He is the one responsible for the calamity? If they rage against Him for failing to stop a disaster, what rage would result if they knew He Himself caused the disaster? (Amos 3:6, Isaiah 45:7)

In the four troubles described in this Psalm, God is both the one who rescues from trouble, and the one who brings the trouble in the first place. This bringing and delivering from calamity is called “His loving kindness.” In verse 23 and following God takes the credit for changing rivers and springs into deserts and thirsty ground. Verse 12 says it was God who humbled them with labor, and it was God who spoke, causing the waves to rise up, melting the hearts of those on the ship.

What do the unrighteous say to this? They say that the people of God are fools for rejoicing in how their God saves, because He only saved them from what He Himself brought. God could simply not bring the calamity in the first place. Why doesn’t He deliver us from our foolishness from the get go? If we were safe before God acted to bring a dangerous storm, why should we praise Him when He removes the danger, since He was the one who brought it in the first place? This is how the unrighteous view it, but the upright see it differently and are glad. Why?

The unrighteous would be happy to simply keep their lives free from trouble and safe from calamity. To have a safe and comfortable life, free of trouble is the best they can hope for. For God to act take away their comfort, only to then give it back, only disturbs the unrighteous, causing them to think of God as capriciousness. But the upright see it and are glad! Why? Because the upright, when they come through a God-given calamity, come out the other side with a clearer view of God Himself! In every calamity God works to draw His people to Himself by opening their eyes to how He is a God who can not only stop the calamity, but who, in Himself, so much more valuable a treasure than any comfort, safety, or good life that we may have had before the calamity came. The upright come to know that their lives, while perhaps more comfortable before a calamity, were not OK, but were without God and therefore hopelessly lost in trivialities. The upright come to recognize the awesome, merciful, loving kindness of God in bringing the trouble that awakened their hunger and thirst, their desperation, not just for rescue, but for God Himself! God brings calamity and He takes it away. For the unbelieving, this just brings them back to what they had in the first place, but having added a hurtful experience along the way. All in all such calamities are a negative transaction. But for the upright, they declare with gladness, “take away all my comfort, all my security and I will rejoice with gladness, if in the end I have an interest in the glorious loving kindness of the Lord!”

Father, open my eyes. Grant me a hunger and a thirst for you. Cause me to cry out to you to satisfy my soul with your beautiful, perfect, infinitely wise loving kindness.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

“Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places, seeking rest, and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came;’ and when it comes, it finds it unoccupied, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation.”
Matthew 12:41-45

I think there might be a connection between Jesus’ rebuke, and his illustration of the unclean spirit. In the illustration the man who had the unclean spirit had his life cleaned, swept, and in order. One might think this is a worthy goal for any of us; to have a stable, clean, and well ordered life. But Jesus warns that such a person is in danger and at risk because he is unoccupied. His life is empty even while being balanced, and by all outward appearances – in good shape. However, it is not filled or occupied with anything greater, and so the unclean spirit may return and bring others. The connection I see between this illustration and the previous rebuke has to do with the question “what should the man be filled with, so as not to end up in a worse condition?”

What was Jesus’ rebuke to his generation? That they did not recognize that something greater than Jonah or Solomon was in their midst. Nineveh repented in sack cloth and ashes at Jonas’ preaching. The Queen of the South traveled far and brought valuable gifts in order to hear Solomon’s wisdom. Both Nevada and the Queen of the South were captivated by these people. They recognized something great, or urgent, or essential about Jonah’s message and Solomon’s wisdom. Yet Jesus’ preaching is far more urgent, and far more weighty. It is eternally significant, yet His generation did not recognize it. Jesus is far wiser, and more compelling, and fascinating than Solomon, yet they were blind to it

Just as Nineveh was filled with fear and desperate repentance at Jonas’ preaching, we need to have our houses (our souls) struck by an appropriate fear and awe at the preaching of Jesus. Just as the Queen of the South was enamored and fascinated and found marvelous the wisdom of Solomon, we need to be filled, all the more, with fascination and wonder at Jesus.

O Lord let your Holy Spirit fill the house of my life such that I find Jesus Christ to be more compelling, and urgent, and awesome, and fascinating, and interesting, and captivating than any of the lesser things that do, I confess, take hold of my attention. Weaken my desires, O Lord, for such lesser things, and enlarge my heart to lay hold of the glorious things of Christ. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Jesus is my rock of habitation. He is my rock – a strong, firm, dependable fortress. This strong fortress is also a place of habitation. He is my dwelling place, a place of comfort, rest, and security. My rock of refuge is never changing, always present, and never moving. Yet I come to it continually. I inhabit my home of rock, yet I also leave it and must frequently return.


It is a testimony to my own weakness that I am so prone to wandering from my place of security and comfort. Yet in the flesh this will always be a limitation I must contend with. Right now as I meditate and ponder and pray, I am more keenly aware of what a treasure my rocky fortress is, yet I know that later, when my mind is occupied with other things, this awareness will lessen. And even now, with all my attention focused on Jesus as my rock, my capacity to grasp the glory of it is limited. I must continually come and constantly return to my rock of habitation. I need God to revive me again and again, day after day. The more I come to my Rock, the more fully I grasp His glory, the more I groan knowing that I cannot hold this glimpse for very long. Yet the more I return, the more I want to stay. John Owen, one of the great puritan thinkers and writers describes it this way in The Glory of Christ:

“Alas! We cannot here think of Christ, but we are quickly ashamed of, and troubled at, our own thoughts; so confused are they, so unsteady, so imperfect. Commonly they issue in a groan or a sigh; Oh! When shall we come unto Him? When shall we ever be with Him? When shall we see Him as He is? And if at any time He begins to give more than ordinary evidences and intimations of His glory and love unto our souls, we are not able to bear them, so as to give them any abiding residence in our minds. But ordinarily this trouble and groaning is amongst our best attainments in this world, – a trouble which I pray God, I may never be delivered from, until deliverance do come at once from this state of mortality; yea, the good Lord increase this trouble more and more in all that believe.”

C.S. Lewis put it more succinctly: “Our greatest havings are wantings.” It will do me no good to complain about my weakness, that I cannot hold steadily onto the glimpses of glory I find when I inhabit my rock of refuge. God has so ordained this limitation, while I am in this jar of clay. Yet, let me return continually to my rock. Let me contemplate often. Let me praise continually. Let me be revived again and again.

O Lord, I confess that I do not like to live with tension, yet longing for you is the ultimate tension. Please Lord, let me embrace the tension of being required to have to come continually to my rock, and accepting this fact that I must come and go often, that I might return frequently, stay longer, and yearn to dwell eternally in my rock of habitation.

My faith rests on a solid foundation, a firm platform confirmed and established in the past. My faith is secure because of what God has done and declared in the past. He demonstrated with all earnestness His purpose to save me on the cross. In the past God declared an oath by which I have a sure and steadfast anchor for my soul. What great encouragement I have in such a refuge of hope. God has done all this so that I can look back and have great confidence that I will lay hold of it.


God’s past actions and declarations give me confidence for the future. My faith rests assured on God’s past work, but it does not end there, for God’s past action must result in my forward looking faith in His future promises. My backward looking faith finds great confidence in what God has done; my forward looking faith hopes for something He has yet to do. The livelier, of the two, is my forward looking faith. My backward looking faith is described with words like anchor, steadfast, and secure. These are strong stable words. My forward looking faith is described with words like desire, yearning, and longing. These are affections for things that I do not yet have. Whereas my backward looking faith takes hope in things I do have, my forward looking faith is measured by its desire for and striving after a future inheritance. So, when I pray for God to increase my faith, I am asking both for an even greater confidence of the things God has done, but also for a greater desire and longing for what God has promised yet to do for me. If I am to have a lively faith that pleases God, I must genuinely want, and actively pursue, the heavenly city of God. I must desire, long for, yearn after, stretch out toward, the better country, and God has promised to bring me there. He has prepared it for me.

O my soul, pray that God will grant you a deep desire and powerful longing for His city, and do not find your rest in any city of this world.