hunger and thirst

I Like Big Books and I Cannot Lie

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

image

As you probably already know from reading earlier posts, I have quite the collection of Bibles. I don’t mean on my iPhone or iPad, either (although I do have TWO Bible apps with a plethora of translations between them). I mean actual Bibles.

I have a 1611 facsimile of the King James Bible. I also have at least one of the following: American Standard Version, New American Standard, Revised Standard Bible, New Revised Standard Version, New King James Version, English Standard Version, New International Version, New Living Translation, Holman Christian Standard Bible, Amplified Bible, New English Bible, The Message, and The Voice.

I ran out of breath just typing that.

I have lots of Bibles that look pretty and make me look all spiritual and impressive when I tote them under my arm. Not all of them at once, mind you. I only carry one at the time. Two tops.

But for all that, how much of a Bible do I carry inside me? How well do I know this Bible I profess to love, that I boldly proclaim as inerrant, perfect, God-breathed?

And if people are reading my life like the only Bible they will ever read, what kind of message are they getting? Is it that God only loves good little children? Is it that God loves the same causes I do and is against everything I’m against? Is is that you have to jump through all the right hoops and say all the right magic words to get God’s approval?

Or is it that I (like you and everyone else alive) am a broken person living in a broken world, hopelessly lost and estranged from God? Is it how that very God took on skin like mine and came to live among people like me to show me the way Home? To be the way Home?

I don’t have a neat and tidy ending for this post. I don’t have a funny story to close on. I do have the feeling that with all these Bibles, I should know a lot more about THE Bible than I do.

I also know that God is faithful and patient. He wants me to know Him far more than I do most of the time. And He’s very persistent.

I’m praying for a deep hunger and thirst for God’s Word. I want to crave it, to live it, to breathe it, to cherish it, to make it as much s part of me as my own skin.

“Deep within me I have hidden Your word so that I will never sin against You. . . . Your word is a lamp for my steps; it lights the path before me” (Psalm 119:11,105).

image

The Wild Weekend of YEC

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I’m tired. It’s been a hectic, crazy 48 hours, but it has been so much more than worth it. I volunteered again for the Youth Evangelism Conference at the Municipal Auditorium in downtown Nashville. The atmosphere was electric, with close to 10,000 students and adults in attendance, anticipating what God was going to do next.

Well, God didn’t disappoint. I saw lots of students going forward, making decisions for Christ, not just being satisfied with playing religious games but willing to give everything to follow Christ.

One thing I remember from the weekend was the speaker talking from Jeremiah how God boiled down his people’s rebellion into two things: forsaking the fountain of living water and trying to quench their thirst from broken wells. They gave up the living water to drink mud.

The solution to my struggles and your struggles isn’t to try harder or to be more committed. The issue isn’t about effort. It’s about appetite. What are we feeding on? Is it everything the world says will fulfull us? Those things may taste good at first, but they leave us unsatisfied and still hungry and thirsty.

Or are we seeking after Living Water and the Bread of Life? For me, am I cultivating a good appetite for God and letting him fill me up so that I’m too full for anything else?

The answer is to feast on Christ. Let him be enough. Let him be your strength, your power, your supply, your joy, your reason for living. Anything else that you devote your life to or prize highly is an idol. Anything other than Jesus that tells you that it will take care of you no matter what is an idol.

I’m sure that I heard this somewhere else, so I can’t take credit for it. How do you defeat an idol? You starve it. You don’t give it any time or a affection. Instead, you give all that to God who deserves it in the first place.

I went to serve and be a blessing and once again found myself blessed and served. I was challenged and motivated to hunger and thirst after God more than ever before.

I hope that’s your desire, too.

 

What Do You Want?

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 1 Comment

At Kairos tonight, Mike Glenn posed this question: Suppose God shows up in front of you and asks you want you want, no limits and no restrictions. What would you ask for?

The Bible relates that happening to King Solomon. He could have asked for the death of his enemies or vast wealth. He probably didn’t need any more wives, so I imagine that wasn’t an option.

He chose wisdom.

What would you choose? What would I choose?

I want my answer to be as much of God as I can handle. I remember the verse in Matthew that says to seek first the Kingdom of God and all His righteousness, and everything else will be added.

That’s not saying that I will strike it rich or that a fabulously wealthy uncle that I’ve never heard of will kick the bucket and leave his gazillions to me. That’s saying that I will get what I need when I need it.

My growing desire these days is to hunger and thirst after God more than anything else. Before you start thinking how super-spiritual I am, let me rephrase that statement. I want to want to hunger and thirst after God more than anything else.

Happiness fades. As soon as I’ve found what I think will make me happy, the feeling wears off.

I want joy. I want the kind of joy that comes from being grounded in the truth of who Jesus is and who I am in Christ. I want joy that outlasts seasons of happiness and sadness, sunshine and rain (now you’re probably humming that song from the early 90’s), bliss and pain.

I want to be able to say (and mean it) that the Lord gives and the Lord takes away and my joy is the same, regardless.

What a lost world needs to see isn’t happy Christians, but believers so full of joy that nothing and no one can touch or take away. May we be so full of the joy and love of Christ that it can’t help but spill out onto those around us who need it.

 

 

Singleness of Purpose and Action: A Confession

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

It’s time for another one of my soul-cleansing confession blogs where I ‘fess up to messing up. Better that than me eventually winding up on Jerry Springer right after the gay, cross-dressing nympho Quakers. That would be awkward.

Lord, I confess that I’ve spent way too much time and energy striving to be noticed and liked and appreciated. I haven’t spent nearly as much time trying to be faithful and righteous and God-honoring.

I confess that I’ve attempted to impress others with my Bible knowledge, yet I’ve hardly picked up my Bible except to parade it around so that others think of me as oh-so-very-super-spiritual.

I confess that I’ve been trying to knock down the doors that You closed on me for a very good reason. I’ve been fighting You for something I don’t really want rather than taking what You give that I need (to borrow from the great theologian Rich Mullins).

I confess that You’ve become a means to my own ends instead of my Ultimate End and Joy.

I confess that I’ve trusted in what I think and what I feel instead of trusting in what I know to be true of You and Who You have proved Yourself to be to me over and over. I’ve listened to my fears way too many times instead of waiting for the Still Small Voice that says good things about me and speaks peace into my chaos.

I confess that I have put myself in the spotlight that only You deserve and my goal has been for others to make much of me instead of making much of You.

I confess that I am weary from chasing rabbit-holes and dead end paths and roads that go nowhere but lead back to themselves. I confess that I have lost my first Love.

Help me to hunger and thirst for Your Word more than any meal and to seek You with all my heart and soul and strength and mind.

Help me to have a singleness of purpose and of action so that people see in me what it looks like to truly honor God and they find out the greatness of this God and are drawn not to me, but to Him.

Chances are, this is your prayer, too. Chances are you’ve fallen into the same trap of self-worship that I have. I hope you know that you’re not the only one who struggles with this from time to time.

My hope is that we can encourage each other to follow hard after Jesus and to seek purity of heart in everything we say and do.

Amen.