I shall seek You earnestly

Psalm 63 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

The Thirsting Soul Satisfied in God.

 O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly;
My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You,
 In a dry and weary land where there is no water.
² Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory.
³ Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips will praise You.
⁴ So I will bless You as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands in Your name.
⁵ My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness,
And my mouth offers praises with joyful lips.

⁶ When I remember You on my bed,
I meditate on You in the night watches,
⁷ For You have been my help,
And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy.
⁸ My soul clings to You;
Your right hand upholds me.

⁹ But those who seek my life to destroy it,
Will go into the depths of the earth.
¹⁰ They will be delivered over to the power of the sword;
They will be a prey for foxes.
¹¹ But the king will rejoice in God;
Everyone who swears by Him will glory,
For the mouths of those who speak lies will be stopped.

The psalmist says:   O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You            I think many of us, as believers, do have this same earnest desire to seek God. This longing for God is built into our souls and spirits. The problem for many of us is that we are busy and distracted with all the things of this world. These are not only bad things, but also the good things which are part of our lives, things like our family and our job. We are overwhelmed and distracted by the busyness of our schedules that we only occasionally take time to seek God. We offer a quick and passing prayer. We thank Him for how He has blessed us, but seldom if ever in the course of our days and weeks do we earnestly seek Him.

The psalmist says:  Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary, To see Your power and Your glory.  In Jeremiah 29:13-14, God says:    ^“You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.  I will be found by you”    Jesus says:    “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)      We can see God everywhere. He is all around us. Creation testifies of His glory and His splendor. The omnipresent God of creation can be seen everywhere. But if we will seek Him, if we will make it our desire to see Him in the sanctuary, to see Him in the heavenly realm, we will see His power and glory.  In Isaiah 6, the prophet describes an encounter he had, with God, in the heavenly realm.          In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple.  Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.”  And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke.        When we seek and see God in heaven, then as we look upon the earth we see the whole earth as full of the glory of God. From a heavenly perspective it is no longer just the beauty of the mountains, the lakes and streams or the ocean and the sky which display the glory of God. But it is everywhere we look, everything, even the dark places are full of the glory of God.

God is not locked into finite time as we are. His plan from the beginning, when sin entered into the world, was to redeem and restore all of creation. From Genesis to Revelation we see the plan of God to restore creation, to fill the whole earth with His glory. On the cross, when Jesus paid the price to redeem man from sin, He also fulfilled God’s plan to restore creation. He said: “It is finished.”  (John 19:30)    If we will seek God, to see Him in the heavenly realm, we will see the finished work of restoration. We will see things as the Seraphim saw them. Jesus taught us to pray: Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. To bring the realities of heaven to earth, we first have to see them as they are. Smith Wigglesworth, a great minister of faith once said:   “I never saw a man get anything from God who prayed on the earth. If you get anything from God, you will have to pray into heaven; for it is all there. If you are living in the earth realm and expect things from heaven, they will never come.”

The psalmist says:    Because Your lovingkindness is better than life, My lips will praise You.
So I will bless You as long as I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name. My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness, And my mouth offers praises with joyful lips.  When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches, For You have been my help, And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy.  My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.     In another Psalm, Psalm 91, the psalmist says: He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
My God, in whom I trust!”         It is in dwelling and abiding in the presence of God that we find our protection, our provision and our deliverance. It is there, abiding in Him that we see His glory in everything around us.

We are residents of this earthly realm and our bodies are restricted to this finite time and place. We need though not to allow the limitations of our bodies to also restrict our spirit and our soul. While we live daily in our physical bodies, doing the things we need to do to live here, working, eating, sleeping, shopping; all of the things included in the busyness of this life, we need also to dwell and abide in God’s presence. We need to seek Him in His sanctuary. Our spirit and our soul are not finite, by the power of the cross our souls have been redeemed. They are eternal. Our spirit is now filled with the Holy Spirit.    

 O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You. Thank You heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ and precious Holy Spirit, that as I live and walk in this life, my body being subject to this realm, my soul and my spirit dwell and abide with You. May I each and every day, see all things from the perspective of heaven. May I see and believe that the whole earth, everything is full of Your glory. May Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven, be more than just a prayer. May it be my heart’s cry and my life’s purpose.    Amen