Today’s Scripture: Psalm 42:1

“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.”

In the life of the godly person, this desire for God produces an aura of warmth. Godliness is never austere and cold. Such an idea comes from a false sense of legalistic morality erroneously called godliness. The person who spends time with God radiates his glory in a manner that is always warm and inviting, never cold and forbidding.

This longing for God also produces a desire to glorify God and to please him. In the same breath, Paul expressed the desire to know Christ as well as to be like him (Philippians 3:10). This is God’s ultimate objective for us and is the object of the Spirit’s work in us. In Isaiah 26:9, the prophet proclaimed his desire for the Lord: “My soul yearns for you in the night; my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.” Immediately before this expression of desire for the Lord, he expresses a desire for his glory: “your name and renown are the desire of our hearts” (verse 8, NIV). Renown has to do with one’s reputation, fame, and eminence—or in God’s case, with his glory. The prophet could not separate in his heart his desire for God’s glory and his desire for God himself. These two yearnings go hand in hand.

This is devotion to God—the fear of God, which is an attitude of reverence and awe, veneration, and honor toward him, coupled with an apprehension deep within our souls of the love of God for us, demonstrated preeminently in Christ’s atoning death. These two attitudes complement and reinforce each other, producing within our souls an intense desire for this one who is so awesome in his glory and majesty, yet so condescending in his love and mercy.

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