O that our hearts would have in them a right and deep appreciation and gratitude for all the beloved gifts God has given us, but that towering above those most intense and glad thanksgivings would be an increasing passion for King Jesus Himself.
Our deepest hungers and thirsts are meant to land upon Him. Only He can satisfy our deepest yearnings. He made us, He owns us and only He can satisfy the heart that longs for more than the American Dream can deliver. We were made for so much more than this life can give us, and the purest, sweetest nectars that earthly life can afford are only a foretaste and a little glimpse of what is still to come. Still to come for those who know Him, who no longer have the Father’s wrath hanging over them, for those who have been forgiven by Him through Christ, who have received Jesus’ perfect righteousness, who have been born into new life with the Spirit of Christ inside them and who have forever to look forward to, a forever that will be an eternal unpacking of the glories of God in Christ.
When this Christ is known, everything else fades.
Everything else has a shelf life. Your face will sag, your health will leave you, your friends will die, Nothing and no one has the kind of enthralling power to capture and keep the human heart. Nothing and no one but Jesus Christ. Everything else is temporary, fleeting and fading. Only He is eternal. You were made for Him.
Old man, that’s why you fear death. Young woman, that’s why you seek the company and cheap praises of others. Old woman, that’s why you are bitter and complaining. Young man, that’s why you run back to your porn. Middle age guy, that’s why you drive a new Lexus. Middle age gal, that’s why you go to the mall again and again. You continue to stuff yourselves with small things when your heart was made for the biggest thing, God. You are like the fool who tries to fill up the Grand Canyon with rocks. He throws and throws and throws, but it never fills up. The heart is like a Grand Canyon. It’s too spacious to be filled with small things like a good job, a satisfying marriage, a fat bank account, the praises of men, a comfortable retirement, sex, a nice car, children, grandchildren, fame, power etc…etc…etc…
The heart that has been loosened, freed from the slave market of sin is meant to soar, and only Christ is a sky expansive enough to contain her flights.
But the practical absence of Jesus Christ in your life will forever keep you living a shallow, joyless, sin, and fear-wracked life. You will be like the metal ball in the pinball machine of life, and like that little ball you will bounce from paddle to paddle, from one fruitless joy to the next in search of something, when all the while it is a Someone you are seeking, Jesus Christ. And He stands at the center, at the base of this pinball machine and says “Come to Me all you who are burdened and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” Why not tonight? Why not surrender yourself to Him tonight? Why not cast yourself upon Him tonight and see if He can take your weight?
But if you die as you bang away from one Christless pursuit to the next, as the paddles of a comfortable, normal, wasted western life fling you to and fro, Jesus will pick you up when you lie there at His feet, crumpled and now hopeless, perhaps old and perhaps not, and He will take you far from Himself and give you the final and due reward of your Christ-neglecting, Christ-despising life, and that will be hell. Far from beauty, far from peace, far from mercy, far from laughter, far from love, you will stand there wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked alone in the arms of justice. And all you will have is God’s wrath coming down upon you for all the sin you clothed yourself in, knitted to your heart and drank down and ate year after year after year, all the thoughts and words and deeds that in light of a holy and perfect God, have left you weighed in the balance and found woefully wanting. Then it will be too late.
But still He calls you today. Go to Him and live while there is yet time.
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