Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Change”
Our Bible verse for today: “As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for You, God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and appear before God?” Psalm 42:1-2 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “Wanting more of God is a good thing.”
Since we live in such a materialistic, consumer-oriented culture, many preachers, teachers, and writers in the Christian world preach, teach, and write about the importance for all of us to want less and to learn to be content with what we have. Lessons abound on the subject of nurturing a spirit of contentment and to stop lusting after more, bigger, better, houses, cars, careers, money, etc.
Well, when it comes to our culture’s insatiable desire for more and more material things, we as Christians do need to rein it in a bit and learn how to be satisfied with less instead of more. But spiritually the problem is exactly the opposite. Spiritually, Christians in America today tend to be satisfied with far too little. C.S. Lewis once described it with an analogy of children content to play in a mud puddle, uninterested in a vacation to the beach, because they have no concept of what a vacation at the beach would be like.
In our very busy, very noisy, very materialistic world, we have become content to play in the mud puddles of superficial spirituality because we have little understanding of what a deep and dynamic and intimate relationship with the living God of the universe would be like. It would be good for us to want less of the world and more of God. And once we do experience the depths, the riches, the majesty and wonder of our Awesome God, like the Psalmist in 42:1-2, we will want more and more of Him.
An ever-increasing and never-satisfied lust for the things of the world is a bad thing and needs to be resisted. A deep longing for more and more of God is a good thing and needs to be pursued. Ask God to change your “wanter” so you want more of Him and less of the world.
For an expanded teaching on this subject you can go to my web site at http://www.JimMersereauBooks.com, click on the tab “Free Articles” and download the articles “Room for the Singing of Angels”; “Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times”; and “What Makes a Woman Truly Beautiful?”.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 