The Desperate Servant

Psalms 63: 1-6

You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you;I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.  I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night.

I often look at verses like 63:1 where is says that “My whole spirit longs for you as in a parched land where there is no water.” Sometimes it’s hard to relate to the nature of true desperation wherein the psalmist is declaring complete dependence on the presence and influence of God. In the American culture we live in, the fact remains that even at your worst, you are still probably in better shape than 75% of the world.   So it may be hard to put yourself in that mindset to say, “I long for God in the same manner as I would long for water in a parched land.”  Yet I continue to learn a lot about God through watching my children. When my 3 child was 5 months old she was getting close to sitting up on her own. We worked with her everyday but eventually she got tired and just lays back.. She was at a stage in her life where she is completely dependent upon my wife and I for everything.  Rather she wanted something to eat, something to drink, to move from here to there or whatever; she required someone with a greater power than that of her own, to give her what she needed.

This is the place that the psalmist found himself in stating, “God I earnestly seek you, I’m as desperate for you as I would be for water in a desert. If I don’t have more of you, I won’t go on. God I have seen your glory, I have seen your presence and I want more and more of you.. So I will seek you in the morning.. I will seek you in the night.. Because I want more of you in my life.”

We live in a day and age where we are completely desperate for a move of the Spirit of God.   There is a statistic that less than 4% of the young generation are Bible believing Christians. It has become harder and harder to remain strong in your faith. It is becoming more difficult to live out the life and the love of Christ in this world. Compromise has infiltrated the people of God, making it hard to distinguished saved from unsaved; rendering us highly ineffective. 

Yet, the message has never changed.  God’s love is real. God’s love is matchless and can find right where you are. Christ can meet you there, pick you up and restore you before God and man. 

The world’s need for God has not diminished just because their attitude against Him has increased.  The world’s need for God has not diminished just because we, as God’s children, have continually justified our lack of devotion to God in our pursuit to build our own kingdoms.  Your friends and loved ones who don’t know Jesus, are unknowingly desperate for His salvation, and yes, Christ could break through the clouds and declare salvation to the world, starting up a world-wide revival. But that is not the way he works.  He works through you and me. He works through His servants who, having experienced his restorative love and power, devote their lives to spreading the good news of Jesus.

So the time for Games is over.  People of God, now is the time to seek the presence of God. Now is the time to dive into His life-giving word and be transformed. Not just so that you can be a better person, but so that you can be equipped with the word, presence and Power of God to touch the world around you.

Romans 12:1-2 states “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” 

The phrase “I beseech you therefore” points to the importance of the context of Romans chapter 11, which is speaking of Christ’s work on the cross. Paul is saying “Because of all that Christ has done for you, I am pleading with you to give your entire life in the service to God, which is simply a reasonable request, a reasonable act of worship.” God has done everything for us. And in return He asks us for our entire lives in service to Him.   It’s not an absurd request. The God of heaven who gave us the lives that we messed up, died on a cross in order to restored us on earth and give us eternal life in heaven; demands complete devotion.  It’s a small request. It’s like God handing you a million dollars and saying, “I’ll take a coke, keep the change.”

We need to be desperate, passionate and hungry for more of God than ever before. We need to be ingesting the word of God and allowing His light to shine out to the world around us.  That doesn’t mean you won’t mess up. The Bible speaks of 3,237 people and only one of them got it right. But when we stumble and fall, we can just rely on his mercy and grace to lift us back up.. And continue pressing in to God’s presence and power..

So I will end this devotional by re-iterating the words of the apostle Paul in stating, “Choose you this day, who you will serve.” Determine this day, that you are going to go after God with a passionate desperation. If we do this everyday, we will grow in the word, will and plan of God. We will grow, precept upon precept, being equipped to go out reach this world with the Love of God.