Heart Tracks - What Must I Do?

"You will make known to me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever." Psalm 16:11

So often in our corporate worship we hear, in various but similar ways, the invitation to "Come into His Presence." I've said it myself...many times. More and more however, the question keeps arising in my spirit; What would happen if we ceased to be "visitors" to His Presence, but lived there? That we lived so connected to Him, so conscious of Him that His effect upon our lives would be seen in every area of life. If this were the case with us, how many of our current attitudes, and how much of our ingrained temperament would remain the same? The walk of a believer is to be one of ongoing transformation, but here's the problem; too few of those who profess to believe are really being transformed. That's not going to happen with an hour spent with Him on Sunday, and some hit and miss "devotional" time through the week. You can bring a block of ice into a heated room for an hour or two, and some melting will surely happen, but when you take it back outside, it quickly freezes again. Such is the result for far too many who say they are His. Paul said we are to be "transformed from glory to glory" in Him. The "ice" of our flesh is melted away in His Presence. Our problem is that we don't spend much time in the environment of His Presence. We conform to what and who we spend the most time with. The ice of our flesh life never really melts away, and we live in that flesh, not in His Spirit.

This doesn't mean that we don't try to live right, or do right. It does mean that we easily fall into a kind of "Christian law," where we base it all on our works. The rich young ruler came to Jesus and asked "What good must I do to have eternal life." Jesus asked him if had been keeping all the commandments. He replied that he had. The Lord then said, "One thing you lack. Go, sell all you have, and follow Me." Scripture tells us that he walked away sad, because he had many possessions. Jesus was telling Him that the "one thing," really, the only thing, was that he be with Him. Everything flows out of that. Nothing can get in the way of that. Our great problem is that so much does. Activity, even ministry activity does. So do our agendas, our human relationships, our possessions, our goals and our desires. Definitely our cherished sins. Having them, even when we know some or all of them may be hurting us, means more to us than having Him. We want many things more than we want the One thing. And so we make our obligatory appearances before Him, and then, like the block of ice, go back outside to our much more familiar environment.

Within all of us is a yearning for His eternal life. It is found in only one place; His Presence. And His Presence is found first at the cross. It is there we embrace Him, and we can only embrace Him with empty hands. When we do, we can never let Him go. We discover the meaning of the old hymn, "Nothing to Thee I bring, only to Thy cross I cling." So begins our transformation "from glory to glory." In His Presence.

Blessings,
Pastor O