Desires.

Desires.

Psalm 42.1-3MSG

A widespread cry is growing in the hearts of believers for a real, tangible encounter with God. They want, like Moses, to see Him face to face. They don't want only to read about Him, have head knowledge of Him, talk about Him, and pay homage to Him on Sunday mornings.

I believe that this strong undercurrent in our nation manifests as a holy dissatisfaction with the status quo of the institutional and traditional church.

From, Psalm 42 we read of spiritual hunger. A King that anticipates feedings by his living God.

-King David, a man with pain, and rejection from his own kin. David leans heavily upon his relationship with God.

Psalms 42:1-3 MSG “A white-tailed deer drinks from the creek; I want to drink God, deep drafts of God. 2 I’m thirsty for God-alive. I wonder, “Will I ever make it— arrive and drink in God’s presence?” 3 I’m on a diet of tears— tears for breakfast, tears for supper. All day long people knock at my door, Pestering, “Where is this God of yours?””

Jack, a professor of psychology and literature, had a brilliant mind. He had declared himself as an atheist at the age of 15 and in adulthood adamantly defended his atheistic faith. Christian friends tried to persuade him. As Jack put it, “everyone and everything had joined the other side.” -But the Bible, he had to admit, was different from other literature and myths.

About the gospels, he wrote, “If ever a myth had become fact, had been incarnated, it would be just like this.”

One Bible passage became more influential to Jack – Exodus 3.

Here, God is calling Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.

Moses asked God who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, God responded, “I Am who I Am.”

This passage is a complex play on words and names, but reflects God’s eternal presence from the beginning.

Interestingly, later, Jesus echoed the same when he said, “before Abraham was born, I Am, John 8.58! ”

Jack, better known as, CS Lewis, was deeply persuaded by this passage. “This was all that the one true God should need to say – simply that He is the, I Am!”

In a life-changing moment, Lewis gave in, and admitted God was God.

-This was the beginning of a journey for Lewis toward accepting Jesus.

Perhaps you’re struggling with belief, as Lewis did, or maybe with a Luke-warm faith.

We might ask ourselves if God is truly the I Am, in our lives.

God is looks for people with a heart like David, who declared in, Psalm 27:4 "One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple”

A great woman of the faith, Eugenia Price wrote, “My need is the most glorious possession I have outside of Christ himself.”

Have you ever considered being desperate for God as a precious gift to be sought?

-Do you have a need?

Once more, CS Lewis expressed, “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.”

Why should we be desperate for God’s presence?

1. The first reason we should want to be desperate is, because that will bring Revival

Without God’s presence, life is meaningless; without the power of the Holy Spirit, ministry is fruitless.

Moses knew this and was unwilling to go forward without the assurance of God’s personal presence. Exodus 33:15 Then he said to Him, "If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.”

We stand in dire need of revival, but we don’t always carry a personal urgency for revival.

Much of the book of Lamentations is the cry of a prophet who sensed the immediacy of his nation’s need for revival.

Yet the prophet’s cry was one of anguish because the people to whom he ministered were content to live without it.

In shocked agony, Jeremiah asked a piercing question: “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?” Lamentations 1:12.

His question could be repeated today. -None of us would mind revival; but few are desperate for it.

King David, a man that experienced the call of God on his life, as a young lad. David out tending the sheep as the prophet Samuel came to anoint the next King of Israel. No one in David’s family believed Samuel was coming to anoint David.

Did you know that if someone can’t tend to sheep, they sure aren’t ready to go loin, and bear hunting, much less to go against a giant named, Goliath!