I've been in unplanned radio silence on this blog for a while now. I contemplated back-logging some entries, but hopefully I can be more intentional in the next few days and you'll read some thoughts and maybe catch a vid or two.
This morning I preached at Grace--you can catch the sermon online! I don't normally use quotes but today there were a couple that I just had to share with you. Because I found these online, I cannot properly annotate where exactly the quotes are from, only who:
"If we don’t feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because we have drunk deeply [of Him] and are satisfied. It is because we have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Our soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great.”--John Piper
“If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desire, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”--C.S. Lewis. (I can't believe I didn't include this quote this morning!)
"Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for desires exists. …If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." - C.S. Lewis
"I want deliberately to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain." --A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, Chapter 1.
IF something in you resonates with these quotes, and you realize you have lost your hunger for God, maybe praying this prayer would help:
"O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, `Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.' Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus' name, Amen." --A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, Chapter 1 (ending prayer)
3 comments:
"We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”--C.S. Lewis
I love this bit. CS Lewis is one of those people I can only read a sentence or two at a time because there's so much in his words. Thanks for sharing that!
(ps, this is Amy from Spencer Mills, not some totally random stranger.)
Further up! Further in!
Jason I thought you did an excellent job of sharing your hunger for God with us. It made me want to be more hungry.
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