Dining With Jesus-Our Purpose

One reason our Creator gave us taste buds was so that we might see the close analogy between eating delicious foods and loving God. Jesus knocked at the door of the Laodicean church so that he might enter and dine with them (Rev. 3:20). Contrary to common usage, Jesus is not knocking at the door of the sinner's heart in this text (though he may very well do so)! When Martha was overly concerned about Mary helping her get dinner on the table, Jesus lovingly reminded her, "Only one thing is really necessary, and Mary has desired that" (Luke 10:42). And David urged, "O, taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8). Is this your experience? Do I help that in you?

Some people have a knack for making me hungry to know God. I know a few people who when I'm done talking with them make me want to know and love Him more. I treasure those people. They don't try to be religious. They don't attempt to be spiritual. They simply are themselves and in the process radiate the presence of God. Many of them have trekked through dark valleys yet they still carry a hopeful, persistent, passion and love about them.

To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul's paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart. St. Bernard stated this holy paradox in a musical quatrain that will be instantly understood by every worshipping soul:

We taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread,

And long to feast upon Thee still:

We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead

And thirst our souls from Thee to fill.

Come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after God. They mourned for Him, they prayed and wrestled and sought for Him day and night, in season and out, and when they had found Him the finding was all the sweeter for the long seeking.

-A. W. Tozer (The Pursuit of God,)