PASTOR'S PAGE
Pastor Tim W. Stout
Pastor’s Page Pastor Tim W. Stout October 2007
A man was stranded in the desert. He was crawling across the burning sand, dying of thirst, when he encountered a necktie salesman. "Can I interest you in a nice new tie?" the salesman asked. "Are you crazy?" the man gasped. "I'm dying of thirst and you want to sell me a necktie?" The salesman shrugged his shoulders and moved on, and the dying man resumed his crawling. Finally, he came upon an unbelievable sight. There, in the middle of the desert, was a huge restaurant with neon lights and a parking lot filled with cars. The desperate man crawled to the front door. He whispered to the doorman, "Please, help me in, I have to have something to drink." The doorman replied, "I'm sorry, sir. Gentlemen are not admitted without a tie." You say, "That's the story of my life sometime."
I doubt that we have ever really been that thirsty. Oh, you may have wanted water, but to come to the point where we really thirst, where our tongues dry up and swell, where we will die if we don't get a drink – I doubt if we have been there. However, this is the type of a thirst we need for God.
If I were an advertising agent for a cold and refreshing drink, my basic job description could be summed up in a few words: "Make people thirsty for my product." Hopefully after reading the challenge from the following passage, each of us will be thirstier for God.
Psalm 63:1-3 tells us “O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.”
My prayer for the past few months have come from this passage. It is my “heart’s desire” to experience the power and fire of God in my life. Since I have been praying for this, the devil has fought me harder than ever before. I have learned what I always knew to be true ~ the closer I try to get to God, the harder the devil fights me! But may I add, my God is still real, sweet, loving, gracious and powerful and He gives the strength for me to be able to handle this through His name.
I want to give you some Bible passages that I have found to help me desire more of God. May God use His Word to speak to all of us today!
“As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God:” Psalm 42:1-2a
“But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.” James 4:6-8
St. Matthew 5:6 says “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”
Can I ask us today? Are we really thirst for Christ, the Water of life? Are we hungry for Christ, the Bread of life?
The psalmist David requested of the Lord (Psalm 27:4) “One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; 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 enquire in his temple.”
David’s petition to God was that he might have a closer communion and a more intimate knowledge of God. This is what we need! God has promised to respond to us if we seek Him with all our heart! Jeremiah 29:13 says “And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.”
David was persistent in his desire for God. He kept asking, desiring, thirsting to sit in the very presence of God. Do you desire that?
John Piper said it well in his book, A Hunger for God, that we must get a real “homesickness for God.” We must hunger after His bread.
We must get a real understanding that this world holds “nothing” for us, so we can begin to get “hungry” to be in the presence of God!
Piper said “If you don’t feel strong desires for the manifestation of the glory of God, it is not because you have drunk deeply and are satisfied. It is because you have nibbled so long at the table of the world. Your soul is stuffed with small things, and there is no room for the great.
