Earnestly and Early – The Kingdom Curriculum XV (2)

Earnestly and Early

The great commandment

And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and the first commandment.” Matthew 22:37, 38

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. Psalm 63:1

Seeking the Lord Is Serious Business

He who truly loves the Lord will seek Him. Like the bride in Song of Songs, the constant preoccupation of the true seeker’s heart and mind is the Beloved–seeing Him, being with Him, luxuriating in His embrace, bathing in His glory, hearing His words of comfort, instruction, and love. The Law of God calls us first of all to love the Lord, and loving Him begins in seeking Him.

You miss a lot in translations sometimes. The Hebrew for the first part of Psalm 63:1 says, “O God, You are my God; You–I earnestly seek You, early in the day.” That’s more like it. The translation “earnestly” is an interpretation of the text, but, I think a reasonable one. For if we are earnest about seeking the Lord each day, won’t we begin that day in this activity? And won’t we begin it as early as possible?

As a kid I used to love Christmas morning. We were always up by, oh, 4:00 or so, rolling our parents out of bed so that we could rush in and get a good start on enjoying our new stuff. We were eager. We certainly were early. And we knew just exactly what we were after. Something like that is what this passage intends. Those who love the Lord know Whom they seek; indeed, it’s because they know Him, how great and glorious and beautiful He is, that they seek Him. And they are determined, eager–even to the point of rising up early in the morning–to find Him and be with Him.

Jesus did this, as we know, and nobody has ever loved God the Father as much as Jesus. But He shows us what it means to be a true lover and seeker of God: first thing, early in the morning, panting for His presence, like a thirsty deer at a brook, eager to enjoy and be renewed in Him. This seeking God is serious, glorious business, and it characterizes all those who love God according to the teaching of His Law.

Learn to love God more by meditating in His Law daily. You can order your copy of The Law of God today and take up this discipline with joy. Go to www.MyParuchia.com, point your browser to “Publications,” then click on the drop-down option, “Waxed Tablet Publications.”

–

In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore.

T.M. Moore is editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001,2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.