Christian Crier
Here are my top seven Bible verses relating to having a longing for God.
Psalm 42:1 “To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah. As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.”
Just like the patriarchs of old, we too should “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city” (Heb 11:16). Imagine a deer that’s been running for his life and then finding water, desperately pants for a drink. David, in the same way, was constantly running for his life as the evil King Saul pursued him. David panted for his God to bring him deliverance but there is more to it than that. David longed for God in a way that is decidedly different from that of the hope of Jesus’ appearance. It is a deep, abiding longing for God. Do we have such a longing for His return and to see him some day?
Psalm 119:20 “My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times.”
The psalmist’s was consumed with the Lord’s laws as he understood them to be a reflection of the holy character of God. The law of God tells us so much about God’s standard of holiness and righteousness and so we shouldn’t be surprised that the longest chapter in the Bible is Psalm 119 which focuses on the laws of God. Keeping God’s law should be something we long for too; not that we’re saved by the law but a person who’s been born again will have a new heart and new desires to live a life of obedience to God.
Isaiah 55:1 “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”
This is very similar to Jesus’ statement about the living water, saying, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14). We all get thirsty but when we receive the living water from the Son of God, we have eternal life and that spring never runs dry or just as the psalmist wrote, “For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things” (Psalm 107:9).
Psalm 119:131 “I open my mouth and pant, because I long for your commandments.”
Here again is the psalmist recognizing the holiness of God by longing for His commandments. Elsewhere, the psalmist writes “God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1). He longs for God so much as to almost faint, and being in a dry and weary land where there is no water makes him long even more for God and for that living water which brings eternal life.
Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Jesus knows how burdened we can become by life and so offers an open invitation to anyone and everyone who is laboring under a heavy toll and seeks to find rest for their soul. Who is it that labors? All who are trying to carry their own loads in life without the aid of the sovereign and omnipotent God. Who better to carry our loads than God Himself and Jesus, being God, can carry what we are not able too. Come to Him and He promises to give you rest.
Psalm 84:2 “My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God.”
The psalmist has a pattern in many of his psalms and that is that he has a constant longing for God and for His courts, meaning the Kingdom of God. Is that your longing too? Don’t you thirst and hunger for God? Don’t you have a longing for Him and His appearance? I believe every Christian should have that same hunger and thirst for God and a deep sense of longing for Him when we can finally enter our eternal rest.
Second Timothy 4:8 “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”
The Apostle Paul, in his very last letter before being beheaded, knew that God had laid up for him a crown of righteousness, but knew that his righteousness was not from himself but the very righteousness of Christ (2nd Cor 5:21). Paul also wanted to encourage Timothy (and by extension, us) that there will also be the rewards of the righteous that Jesus will hand out for all who have repented and trusted in Him. Jesus Himself said that at His appearance, He will say “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt 25:34).
Conclusion
Do you also long for God’s appearance? Many of us most certainly do but for those who have rejected Christ all their lives the Apostle John warns, “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen” (Rev 1:7). They mourn because in their heart they know God exists but they suppressed this knowledge and so they are without excuse (Rom 1:18-20). For all those who refuse to bow the knee, Paul writes that it is “because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Rom 2:5).
Article by Jack Wellman
Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.
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