2 Timothy 4:8
Finally the crown of righteousness is reserved for me. The Lord, the righteous Judge, will award it to me in that day – and not to me only, but also to all who have set their affection on his appearing.
How many today are longing for Jesus to return? Why do we want Him to return?
I’m not sure that a lot of people today are longing, waiting expectantly for Christ to return. We long to be trouble-free, and free of many other things in this life. Suffering, debt, bad situations in which we have got ourselves, situations not of our making into which we have been caught up in. Yes, sometimes we just want an escape. But that is NOT the longing of which Paul speaks here in 2 Timothy.
Where is the desire to pursue God? Where is the longing to know Him. The Old Testament speaks of men and women who really seem to have an intimate close relationship with God.
Adam and Eve walked with Him in the cool of the evening….naked and unashamed.
Enoch walked with God and God took him .. never to experience the curse of the garden. Death.
Abraham believed that even if he obeyed God and sacrificed his son on an altar that God would raise him up. He knew God’s character and trusted Him.
Samuel ,Hannah, David ,Jeremiah,Daniel, Elijah, Elisha, Hosea.. Many many others knew God and pursued Him as a man pursues a trusted friend.
Moses in Exodus 33 “Show me thy will that I may know you-that I may find grace in your sight..Show me your glory.”
The crown of righteousness is given for a life that desires to know Him, Jesus Christ, God’s only Son. In Psalms 42 the psalmist says,’ As the deer pants after the waterbrooks, so my soul longs after you.” Our heart’s should cry out to know Him, to walk with Him in the cool of the evening, to see his glory, and see Him at His next appearing to gather the saints to rule and reign with Him forever. AMEN! If that is your longing then you have waiting for you a crown of righteousness awaiting you in heaven one day.
To be sure it will not be our righteousness on which we stand. We will stand in the righteousness of Christ who exchanged our filthy righteous rags for His perfect, complete, wonderful righteousness at Calvary. (2 Corinthians 5:20-21)
This prayer is from A.W. Tozer, a man of prayer which I believe made him the man of God he was. One can read in his words the longing and the expectation he sought to pursue God with his whole heart and life.
“O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, ‘Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.’ Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
http://www.faithbiblechurchnh.org/tozer_following.htm
My this be our prayer today!
Treading on,
Freda
by Micah Stampley Holiness is what I long for
