Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night they never stop saying:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.”
Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, the twenty four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives for ever and ever. Rev 4:8-10
“Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:23-24
There is a revelation of God, that if we can get it, will have us on our faces for all of eternity before him crying “Holy! Holy! Holy!” with everything that is in us, and more. That revelation will lead to a worship that will take us from revelation to revelation, from worship to worship, from realm of encounter with God to ever greater realms of encountering God. This is what kept Joshua in the tent before the Lord long after Moses got up to tend to his duties. This is the revelation that kept Mary at the master’s feet when Martha would have her up helping with the chores. This is the secret behind David’s success in everything he did. This is the big picture in God. This element of being a true worshiper is what set every great man and woman of faith apart from all the rest.
I really believe that there is a key here if we can get a hold of it. I know that I have experienced these realms of worship, where I am encountering God at such a level that all of his goodness is being revealed to me. In those moments, it is like trying to stand under Victoria Falls, with all of the torrent of the glory of God pouring through your body. It literally pulls the worship out of you. In our physical bodies, there is a limit to what we can experience, and in these moments before God, I am pushed all the way to the limit. I am pouring out my heart with all that I’ve got, singing and praising with my whole voice, my whole body, and all that I want in those moments is to have a greater capacity to pour out more. I reach down deep, trying in vain to find enough adoration to satisfy my love for him in that moment. And due to my physical limitations, I can never find enough worship. Always he deserves more, even after you have given him all that there is to give.
This is our lot. Jesus himself is our inheritance, our prize, our very great reward. It is the pearl of great price, or the treasure hidden in a field. When you find the treasure of your soul, you gladly go and sell all to purchase that field. There is a glorious truth of the Kingdom that we will get what we desire. If you set your desire on earthly wealth and fame, it will be yours, and you will sleep in the bed you have made, for all of eternity regretting the foolishness of a life spent in vain. But if you set your desire on the Desire of the Nations, you will come into a life of such satisfaction that you will never be able to contain it all. Your cup of delight will run over for all of eternity as you try in vain to plumb the depths of your inheritance in Him. That is what it is really all about, after all.
I am in this journey, and I am not alone. This is the big picture for all of us. What is it that you desire? Your treasure is where your heart is. Where do you spend your desire? At the feet of what lover have you laid your heart? Very early on in my walk with God, he gave me a picture to this effect when I was listening to a teaching series by Louie Giglio of Passion. It goes like this: All of us are pursuing a light. We are like moths drawn to a flame. There are many twinkling lights off in the distance, and each one of us has his heart set in the direction of one of them. We spend our years rushing toward our goal, and at the end of our days we will finally come to discover that which we have been pursuing all of these years. In the picture God gave me, I saw people reaching their destination, the light which was their God all their life. And just as they get right up to the light, expecting to pass through the tunnel into glory, they bump into a piece of glass. It turns out that the light they were pursuing all this time is nothing more than one of those neon beer signs hanging in the window of some closed-down seedy bar, and they are all alone. And in that moment, the person realizes that they have spent their life on some nothing inheritance, and they have nobody but themselves to spend it on.
Our inheritance in Christ, on the other hand, is quite the opposite. He said “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. Nobody comes to the Father but through me.” He is the humble one, the one who was reviled, yet did not curse. He was the one who could go without receiving glory, but only lived to glorify the One who had sent him. Jesus, who was the king of the universe, had nowhere to lay his head, and was not ashamed to count his place among the most lowly. He forsook the place of greatest earthly acclaim and instead was content to look to the horizon, to that distant country from which he had come, and look forward to the day when he would be vindicated in the heart and sight of God before all men. He was the faithful one, the one who alone was found true and worthy, and therefore the Father has made him Judge of all things. Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but instead took on the form of a servant and became obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. This is the one whom we worship, and we will spend all of eternity trying to express how worthy he is to be praised.
This whole thing is about worship. And the great test in life is to determine who in the end will receive our worship. If we are not careful, we will miss the pearl of great price; we will miss the treasure hidden in the field. Who do we desire? Will we miss the glory of the living, uncreated One? Will we even know it when we see it? Jesus came not as the conquering king in robes of splendor, but he came as the treasure hidden in the field. He came as the one who will without question pass under your notice, unless you know what you are looking for, unless you are led by desire. The Son of David is passing by even now. Will you, like blind Bartimaeus, be waiting with every available sense straining to catch the hint of the passing master? Will you, when he is passing by, call out passionately, “Son of David, have mercy on me! Do not pass me by!” Will you call out to him with longing, unable to be denied? Because if you don’t he will pass you by. He would have passed on down the road and out of town. And the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, when they had reached their destination after having shared the road with Jesus, would have missed the day of their visitation if they had not insisted that the master come in and sup with them. He was going to keep on going his way, and they would have missed the revelation of the Christ that he was about to reveal to them. He will pass you by if you let him. But if you don’t, if you will cry out to him, he will visit you with such a revelation of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ that it will have you climbing the farthest reaches of Glory for eternity to come. This is our destiny. This is our calling. Will we answer the call?
