“Abraham, at this point, has reached the place where he is in touch with the very nature of God. He now understands the reality of God.

My goal is God himself . . .

At any cost, dear Lord, by any road.

It is through the discipline of obedience that I get to the place where Abraham was and I see who God is. God will never be real to me until I come face to face with Him in Jesus Christ. Then I will know and can boldly proclaim, ‘In all the world, my God, there is none but Thee, there is none but Thee'” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest).

Honestly, that thought scares me a bit. At any cost? Just how much will it cost? And how much will it hurt?

But then I remember that there’s nothing worth nearly as much as the joy of knowing Christ. There’s no price I could ever pay that begins to compare with what He paid for me.

Anything else I could ever dream about or desire is like sand to a parched throat compared to the Living Water. I think about all those times I wanted all sorts of presents for Christmas that I couldn’t wait to possess but almost immediately grew tired of or lost interest in after I got them.

In the end, Jesus is my greatest joy. Everything else is a shadow and a copy. Everything good was merely pointing to Him. When everything else passes away, Jesus will remain and will still be the fulfillment of every longing of my heart and soul even into eternity.