Scripture

Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you your heart’s desires.

~Psalm 37:4, NLT

Quote

By ceasing for a moment to consider my own wants, I have begun to learn better what I really wanted.

~C.S. Lewis {The Weight of Glory}

Let me ask you a question: what is the deepest desire of your heart? What do you really want? It is most likely a subject you have never addressed and one you have never confessed to anyone, not even your spouse. We humans are at times embarrassed to be noticed, but deeply offended if we go unnoticed. The victim of the robbers in the Good Samaritan story was not only beaten to a pulp, he was stripped of his clothing. He was lying in the ditch in his own blood with no covering. A part of him wanted to be noticed by the Priest and a part of him was embarrassed because he was naked and ashamed. You may be afraid to talk about this subject and you may be getting uncomfortable thinking about it, but your deepest desire may not be what you think. There are things on the surface you think you want but if you go deeper, much deeper; you will discover that the deepest desire of your heart is to be accepted, to be noticed, to be recognized as a person of worth and there is only one person in the universe that can satisfy this deeper need. It is not your husband, wife, pastor or best earthly friend. YOU NEED to be noticed and accepted by Jesus. Deep down you want to be accepted by the Father and hear Him say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” The one thing you do not want to hear is, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.” Examine your heart and see if I am not right, your deepest desire is to be known by Jesus. It is the horror of horrors, to be banished from His presence and erased from His memory. To be left outside, exiled, estranged and finally and unspeakably ignored: this is hell within itself.

Our deep longing is to be on the inside with the Father, the feast, the music and dancing. No one is their right mind wants to be left out. We want Jesus to acknowledge us and bring us inside. We want to be united with the life source, to be recognized, received and get inside the door to see the glory and experience the pleasure that, to this point, has only been a dream. We don’t just want merely to see beauty; we want to be united with it; to receive it into ourselves; to be immersed and enraptured in infinite beauty. God has given us a foretaste of glory divine, but it is only a taste. We see this breath taking beauty in the natural world. We see it and we admire it, but we have no way of taking it into ourselves. All of this will change on the other side. There, we will share in His glory. It is a serious thing to live among God’s highest earthly creatures. C.S. Lewis said, “The dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.” Be careful how you treat your neighbor, he or she may be a king or a judge in the world to come. It may be possible for you and I to think too much about our potential glory but it is hardly possible for us to think too often about that of our neighbor.

Don’t let your surface and shallow desires lead you astray. Delight yourself in the LORD. Trust Him to know and to meet your deepest desire. I doubt that He will reveal what that desire is until you take delight in Him.

Extra

TGIF and no great to ride all over the country. Jackson and I have put 537 miles on our little side-by-side. It gets great milage. I’m going to guess at least 70 miles per gallon, maybe more. He is with Paw Paw and Granny today. June and I will be headed to the POINT in a few minutes. Today is our Senior Adult Luncheon. We are having Tex-Mex. Come and join us. We will eat at 11:30 at the POINT which is across the road from Brewer High School. Have a great Friday and weekend.

Extra-Extra

I’m not much on reading fiction or allegory. I have read all the Chronicles of Narnia. THE GREAT DIVORCE and OUR HIDEOUS STRENGTH may be considered fiction but I prefer essays and I think I have read practically everything C.S. Lewis wrote. I saw a quote from THE WEIGHT OF GLORY which was first a radio address by Lewis and later put into book form. It was one Lewis book I did not have. I had to have a copy and Noah ordered me one last week. I read about half already and I am not disappointed. I am also excited about leading the congregation through a study of MERE CHRISTIANITY.