gordon 2
Senior Member
When trying to spiritually absorb the daily bible verse this morning it occurred to me the difference in spiritual life before Christ the Messiah and the spiritual life after.
Quote:
Psalm 63
1 O 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.
2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.
3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.
It occurs to me that the Psalmist is unable to find God in himself or herself, the self alone is a dreary and weary land where there is not water. In order to behold the power and glory of God the Psalmist must look upon the sanctuary and from it glean God's steadfast love and so more directly through the sanctuary its history of God's love for his people.
How different this is to the Christian way of spiritual attitude.
Quote:
― John Newton
In an other day John Newton might have been called a psalmist if only for the spiritual meaning and content within his famous sentence.
Simply in comparison to Psalm 63 quoted, John Newton writes not of seeking God, but that God had found him as if it was God doing the seeking in his reality and so because God has found him the spiritual reality as expressed in Psalm 63 is impossible now and from personal blindness now the "I" person must admit he was once blind and now sees.
While the history of the sanctuary is still filled to holding our attentions to God's power and glory and His steadfast love, our spiritual attention and our spiritual reality today is that God found and still finds his people through Jesus Savior and that his power and glory and God's love is an ever present and a living thing ( reality) in the hearts and so the lives of his people.
The sanctuary of the original Psalmist is now twinned with the individual intimate "I" and its deposit of God's very heart and so love, which Newton relates that once was blind and now sees. ( Both love and heart were blind.) To God we are present through or for our Lord Jesus Savior and we can praise God from our within and from the sanctuary and so ours is not "a dry and weary land where there is no water" to use the good poet's ancient words. Ours' is the very opposite and therefore our lives in Christ.
Quote:
Psalm 63
1 O 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.
2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.
3 Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.
It occurs to me that the Psalmist is unable to find God in himself or herself, the self alone is a dreary and weary land where there is not water. In order to behold the power and glory of God the Psalmist must look upon the sanctuary and from it glean God's steadfast love and so more directly through the sanctuary its history of God's love for his people.
How different this is to the Christian way of spiritual attitude.
Quote:
“I once was lost but now I'm found, was blind but now I see.”
― John Newton
In an other day John Newton might have been called a psalmist if only for the spiritual meaning and content within his famous sentence.
Simply in comparison to Psalm 63 quoted, John Newton writes not of seeking God, but that God had found him as if it was God doing the seeking in his reality and so because God has found him the spiritual reality as expressed in Psalm 63 is impossible now and from personal blindness now the "I" person must admit he was once blind and now sees.
While the history of the sanctuary is still filled to holding our attentions to God's power and glory and His steadfast love, our spiritual attention and our spiritual reality today is that God found and still finds his people through Jesus Savior and that his power and glory and God's love is an ever present and a living thing ( reality) in the hearts and so the lives of his people.
The sanctuary of the original Psalmist is now twinned with the individual intimate "I" and its deposit of God's very heart and so love, which Newton relates that once was blind and now sees. ( Both love and heart were blind.) To God we are present through or for our Lord Jesus Savior and we can praise God from our within and from the sanctuary and so ours is not "a dry and weary land where there is no water" to use the good poet's ancient words. Ours' is the very opposite and therefore our lives in Christ.
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