Amen.
I’m pressing on the upward way,
New heights I am gaining every day;
Still praying as I am onward bound,
“Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”
Pressing on the upward way. I hope this morning, as we come, we find ourselves pressing on the upward way. Actually, the message is out of Genesis 23 and the life of Abraham. We are seeing a man who was always pressing on to higher ground. May we emulate our brother Abraham.
Lord, we come this morning to Thee. Lord, You are always moving on. You are never stagnant. You are never just sitting down or going backward. You are always pressing on, Lord, to new heights. Lord, You desire us, as Your children, also to be pressing on.
Lord, we thank You this morning. I pray, as we come, that You can touch our hearts with this matter of pressing on. Lord, restore our spiritual enthusiasm to know more of Christ and to search out this marvelous vista of Christ that we have been brought into. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Well, you know, Jesus said He was the door. He said He was the way, the truth, and the life, but He also said He was the door. I thought about that recently—how great it is, the day we pass through that doorway.
Often we linger outside. The Lord is drawing our hearts to Himself: to know Him, to experience Him, to actually know the living God. Praise the Lord, as He draws us and convicts us, there comes that day when we see Jesus Christ as the doorway of our life—the doorway out of the old way of life and into the new life.
But I want to say that the door is just the beginning. There is a great vista of Christ out there that needs to be explored.
One of my favorite books is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis, because that little mouse Reepicheep was always pressing on, always pressing to the very end. At the end of that book, the ship is afraid because it thinks the edge of the world is out there. They stop, and Reepicheep says, “No, we’ve got to go on.” They would not go, so he gets in a rowboat and starts rowing toward the edge.
Now, he did not know, of course, that the world was round—but we do. The point was that he was searching. He said, “There’s another life out there, and I’ve got to find it.” He never stopped. Reepicheep has always been one of my favorite characters.
This morning we are in Genesis 23. In a way, it is a sad chapter. Sarah dies in Genesis 23, and Abraham is weeping for Sarah and making arrangements for her burial.
As we come to this chapter, there are four things that I feel are critical:
This morning I am only going to cover the first two: Abraham as a stranger and a sojourner, and his possessing a burying place.
Let us read from Genesis 23. I am in the King James Version, as usual.
And Sarah was an hundred and seven and twenty years old: these were the years of the life of Sarah.
And Sarah died in Kirjath-arba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan: and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her.
And Abraham stood up from before his dead, and spake unto the sons of Heth, saying,
“I am a stranger and a sojourner with you: give me a possession of a burying place with you.”
Then, beginning with Genesis 23:8:
And he communed with them, saying, “If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight; hear me, and entreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar,
That he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath, which is in the end of his field; for as much money as it is worth he shall give it me for a possession of a burying place amongst you.”
Another version says, “for the full price.”
Then Genesis 23:17-20:
And the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the borders round about, were made sure
Unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city.
And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre: the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan.
And the field, and of the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a burying place by the sons of Heth.
Now let us turn to Hebrews 11, beginning with Hebrews 11:8-13.
By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.
By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise:
For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child when she was past age, because she judged Him faithful Who had promised.
Then Hebrews 12:1-2:
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us,
And let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.
Finally, Luke 9:23:
And He said to them all, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.”
The first point I want to make, I have basically made already. Abraham was advanced in age, but his spiritual growth and spiritual life had not stopped. He was still progressing in his pursuit of God and in the things of God, even in the death of his wife Sarah.
We see him making this declaration to the sons of Heth: “I am a stranger and a sojourner in this land.” Some versions say, “an alien and a sojourner.” Others say, “a stranger and pilgrim.”
Abraham had been there for sixty-two years, still living in tents. He had not settled down. He was not trying to live as the world lives, but was pressing on in the Lord. At this point in his life, his declaration was that he was a stranger and a pilgrim.
He did not live like the people around him. Though he knew them, and though they were friendly, he was not really of them. He was not really like them. He and his family were different.
Abraham’s heart was not set on settling down, putting down roots, or building a great empire. His heart was to follow the Lord, to really know the Lord, and to go wherever the Lord wanted him to go in that land. Therefore, he was still in a tent.
He was quite different from the others. He was not settled down. He had no roots in the world around him.
Why was this so? Why did he still consider himself a stranger in this world? It was because, brothers and sisters, he was a pilgrim. He was a sojourner.
He was there with a purpose in his heart that God had given him. He was on a journey—a pilgrimage. I looked up “pilgrimage” in the dictionary, and it says, “A long journey or search of great moral significance.” A long journey or search of great moral significance.
He was a pilgrim. He considered himself a pilgrim. Now, brothers and sisters, do you today see yourself as a pilgrim here, with a great moral destiny ahead of you? Are you searching, trying to know God, know His ways, and know Who He is?
Even in his old age, Abraham was still pressing on.
Abraham’s journey began when the God of glory appeared to him. The Word says that the God of glory appeared to Abraham. He spoke to him personally.
He said, “Abraham, I want you to leave everything behind. Leave that old life behind. Leave your old ways behind.”
Tradition says that Abraham’s father was an idol maker. Of course, Abraham would have helped his father. Yet God called him out of all of that—out of idol worship and out of the ways of that land—to go to another place.
Abraham responded to God. This is a key point: when God spoke, Abraham responded. He did not simply think about it and say, “Well, maybe I should; maybe I should not.” He responded to the Lord and went out, not knowing exactly where he was headed.
But he knew he was on a pilgrimage, on a journey. I do not know whether any of you have been on pilgrimages or journeys, but there is an excitement about being a pilgrim that you cannot find in anything else. You are always in search of something. There is something important in your life, and you cannot let go of it until you find what is at the end of that pilgrimage.
That is the way our Christian life should be.
Along the way, the Lord testified that Abraham saw Christ’s day and rejoiced. How was that possible? We see no indication that Christ appeared to Abraham directly, other than that many think the King of Salem was really the Lord Jesus.
However, the Lord said, “Abraham saw My day.” How was that possible? God had told him that he would have a promised seed, and that through his seed the whole world would be blessed. God was speaking of Christ.
But the immediate matter in Abraham’s life was the birth of Isaac, the promised son. Isaac was a foreshadowing of Christ. Somehow Abraham was able to see in Isaac that there was a promised Seed Who would take away the sins of the world: Christ.
The Lord said, “He saw My day, and he rejoiced.” So, in Isaac, who was a shadow or foreshadowing of Christ, Abraham was able to see that there was the Christ.
Then we find in Hebrews that Abraham was looking for a city, a city whose builder and maker was God. There were many cities in that area, both small and large, but none of them captured his heart. None of them satisfied Abraham.
Abraham saw that there was a heavenly city, something that God was going to do—a city that God was going to build. He became a pilgrim, looking and searching for that city. Sixty-two years later, he was still searching. He was still looking. He had not settled down. He was not satisfied where he was. He was still pressing on. He was still in the race.
How could Abraham declare that he was a stranger and a pilgrim? How could he still be pressing on? It was because, brothers and sisters, the vision of the God of glory, the vision of Christ, and the vision of the heavenly city had captured him.
Christ and God’s purpose for Christ—the heavenly city—had captured Abraham. He was caught. There was no other place he could go. There was nothing else he could do. He was not going on three or four pilgrimages—expeditions, that is easier for me to say. No, he had one thing in mind: discovering Christ and that city.
As to the direction and purpose of Abraham’s life, he was committed to this journey. He would not turn back.
Now, brothers and sisters, Abraham was not perfect. We have already talked about the couple of times he deserted the land and went down into Egypt, where he got into trouble. The king wanted to take Abraham’s wife for his own.
The reason was that Abraham told a half-lie. He said, “She is my sister.” Well, she was actually his half-sister, but she was also his wife. Abraham used the wisdom of man to try to get out of trouble, and he got into more trouble.
But God rescued Abraham, as He does us many times in our lives. We leave the pursuit of the promised land, and when we do, we turn to the ways of the world. That is what Egypt was. Abraham went down to Egypt, found himself in trouble, and the Lord had to get his attention and turn him back around.
The Lord delivered him.
We also remember that when Abraham first went out, his old man—his father—was really leading the group. When they got to Haran, halfway to the promised land, they settled down. They put down roots. They accumulated cattle and sheep, grew into a great family, and the land was good to them.
Abraham had actually stopped pursuing. It was because of his attachment to his father—a very legitimate attachment. Do not get me wrong: we are to love and honor our parents. But when that attachment ran contrary to God’s will, Abraham could not yield to God. He yielded to his father, and he settled down with him.
We cannot tell the exact number of years he was there, but it was a long time. It could have been over twenty-five years.
Praise the Lord, the Lord was pursuing Abraham. Abraham may not have been pursuing the Lord at that point, but the Lord was pursuing him. In mercy and grace, when his father died and that old influence was gone, the Lord spoke to Abraham and said, “You need to get on to the promised land.”
And Abraham did. He went on into the promised land. Let me put it this way: he got back to being a stranger and a sojourner in the land—a pilgrim. He was back in the race.
Now, how about you and me? Have you seen Christ? Have you met the Lord Jesus Christ? Has the God of glory appeared to you? Certainly, most in this room have met Him, because you have accepted Him as your Lord and Savior. That means that in your heart, you did meet Him, and He appeared to you.
Have you made Him Lord of your life? Are you willing to go out not knowing? Is He Lord, or is He simply an influence in your life? Those are two different worlds.
Often we want Him to be our helper, but we want to be lord. Well, He is Lord. Until He is Lord, you are not going to get very far in the journey.
If you have made Him Lord of your life and have been baptized, that baptism is a confession to the world and to the unseen world that you are the Lord’s. You belong to Him, and you desire to be His disciple, to follow Him, and to take up this journey—this pilgrimage.
That is what baptism is. It is the real first step in moving on with the Lord.
If you have done these things, let me ask you this: are you still living as a stranger in this world? When you were baptized, you were crucified to the world. You were crucified to that old way of life. We need to stand by faith in that and go on in that, because in baptism we are also raised into newness of life.
But are you still a stranger to this world? Or has the world become dear to you, along with the things of the world? Are we attached? Are we rooted down? Have we built a house, or are we living in a tent?
Another way to say it is this: do some of the things of the world have a grip on you? Do you just have to have that new car? Do you have to have that bigger house?
I remember when I was a kid, we had a twelve-inch television. Now I have a fifty-two-inch television. You know, you just have to have these things, do you not?
Well, it is not that we cannot have things, brothers and sisters. We simply cannot afford to become attached to them. If the Lord asked you to leave them or give them up, could you do it? That is the difference.
We are in the world. We must handle the things of the world, but are you of it? Has it got you? Is it inside you? Are you still living as a stranger?
If these things have a place in your heart, brothers and sisters, we have to ask another question: is Christ still first? Does He have first place?
If we are not strangers to this world, then He does not have first place. We may allow Him to have second place, but that is not the right place for Him. He wants to be first.
The great challenge among us, perhaps six or eight months ago, was that we had left our first love. I do not know whether that has challenged your heart, but it challenged mine. I had to admit that there might be things in my life in which Christ was not first.
That is why we must become strangers in this world.
The second question is this: are you still on a journey? Are you still on that pilgrimage to know the Lord? Are you looking daily for something of the Lord in your life?
Are you expecting the Lord to reveal a little more of Himself to you, or to reinforce the things that have been in your heart—things you have wondered about concerning the ways of God? Then the Lord does something in your day, and you realize that these promises and things of the Lord are very real. They can be real to you.
In other words, all the riches of Christ are available to us. How much are we pursuing those riches of Christ? Are we still on the journey? Are we still serving His purpose, or have we changed to something of our own? Have we stopped?
Let me ask another question: are you satisfied? Just satisfied? I think you know the right answer. We should not be satisfied. Yet often we find that we are just drifting, just satisfied, until the Lord awakens us.
Are you still in the race? In a race, you do not just stop. Even marathon runners get water, but they do not stop. They get refreshed, but they do not stop. They drink water while they are running. You just cannot stop.
Perhaps you have simply become tired. One of the great battles in the end days is that the enemy will wear the saints out. He will simply tire them out.
With all the busyness of the world, running our children to soccer—and when you have three grandchildren, there is a lot of soccer—you are doing all these things, running here and there, and you are worn out. Between work, family, and taking care of the normal things of life, you simply get worn out.
Then you stop pursuing the Lord. Oh yes, you still love the Lord, but you stop pursuing.
Sometimes we become discouraged. Things do not go the way we anticipated. We pray, asking the Lord to do His will in our lives, but there is something we really want. When He does not allow it, we become discouraged or disappointed.
We can fall away, or we can become offended—offended at brothers and sisters, or offended at the Lord. Think of John the Baptist. The Word says he was almost offended because he was in jail and about to be beheaded. The Lord had not come to him, sent him notes, or visited him in jail.
Maybe John was wondering about this great Deliverer, the Lamb Who would take away the sins of the world—the One to Whom John testified, calling himself the friend of the Bridegroom. That was John the Baptist’s place. He was the greatest prophet, as the Lord called him. Yet for the sake of the Lord, he found himself in jail, about to be beheaded, and had not heard a thing from the Lord.
When John’s messengers came to the Lord and said, “John wants to know if You really are the promised One,” the Lord said, “Share with John the things that I am doing, the things you see. And by the way, tell him, ‘Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me.’”
That was the word John needed to hear. I think that when he heard that word, he knew the offense building in his heart was separating him from the will of God. In that state, he was unprepared to be a martyr for Christ.
But I believe that word restored our brother to fullness, and he was able to go on and be a martyr for the sake of the Lord.
These things can sideline us. These things can cause us to sit down on the curb.
Sometimes we lose interest. I do not know how else to say it; it is like a slow death. You are on fire for the Lord, but then things begin to happen. You stop trying to get with the Lord in the morning and in the evening. You stop thinking about the Lord during the day. You still come on Sunday, but the rest of your life simply goes on.
Brothers and sisters, in that state we are no longer on the journey. We have stepped aside. We are out of the race.
I would like to say to you this morning that I believe the Lord has been drawing many of us back to Himself. The maiden in the Song of Solomon said:
Draw me; we will run after Thee.
When the Lord draws, our responsibility is to run after Him. I hope He is drawing you this morning—back to Himself, back to being a stranger and a sojourner, pursuing Him and pursuing His ways.
“Draw me, and I will run after Thee.” But often, even when the Lord draws us in His great mercy to restore us and bring us back into fullness with Him, we find we are really unable to run.
In Hebrews 12, we read that we have this great cloud of witnesses. These are ones such as Abraham and others who suffered for Christ’s sake and lived difficult lives because they believed in the Lord. They are our encouragement because they made it through. They stayed on the journey to the end.
Yes, many were martyred and lost their lives for the sake of the Lord, but they gained the riches of heaven. They gained Christ more than we may ever know.
We have these ones as examples. The whole chapter of Hebrews 11 is meant to encourage us all to press on, because we have those who preceded us in this journey. They want us to join them. They do not want us to drop out of the race.
Hebrews warns us that, to run the race, we need to lay aside every sin and weight that so easily besets us.
Every sin. I want to be as kind as I can. Often we fall into sin, and not only that, we get into the habit of sin. It may be any kind of sin, but we get into the actual habit of it.
God has said that we have been crucified with Him and raised with Him into newness of life, and that sin no longer has power over us. Yet we find ourselves under its power. We get into the habit of some sin, and in our minds we do not see ourselves ever being able to break through it.
Yes, we love the Lord. We will continue with Him as much as we can, but this thing has stopped us in the journey. We are dead in the water.
I remember the testimony of a drug addict who said that he always wanted to be delivered, but he could never see himself being delivered. He said, “I just could not even consider not taking the drugs. It was an impossible thing in my mind. I had done it so long and so much that it was impossible even to think of being free from drugs.”
Praise the Lord, he was delivered through the grace of God.
But sometimes we get into this mindset with sin. You may not consider it a great sin, but it can stop you in the race. The Lord says, “You have got to deal with it.” As Lance would say, “You just have to deal with it.”
How are you going to deal with it? First, you are going to have to believe that in Christ He has delivered you. In the cross, there is power to overcome all sin. You have been crucified with Him, but you have also been raised into newness of life.
Do you believe there is a new life in you that does not sin? There is a life in you that can overcome. Do you believe?
The greatest sin—the sin that so easily besets all of us—is the sin of unbelief.
Recently, in a prayer meeting, I shared this: “Do you believe what you believe in?” We believe we have been delivered in Christ. We believe that we have overcome in Christ. We believe that the power of sin has been broken in Christ. That is what we believe in. But do we believe it?
When it gets down to the nitty-gritty, do we really believe? Ask God to deliver you from this sin of unbelief, that we might really pursue Christ and pursue the riches of Christ.
What is the other thing? Hebrews says to lay aside the weights that so easily beset us. What are these weights?
I thought again about marathon runners. Have you ever seen a marathon runner dressed in a suit, tie, and wingtip shoes? Of course not. He is not prepared for the race. A tie, a long-sleeved shirt, a neatly pressed suit, and wingtip shoes are just not suitable for running.
I am not advocating T-shirts, but when you run, you want to have as little on as possible: shorts, a shirt, and tennis shoes. Nowadays, you cannot just have any shoes; they have to be whatever kind of shoes they make today.
When I was a kid, there was only one tennis shoe on the market. It was black, and that was it. That was what you wore. They were Converse. Maybe you could get them in white. The younger ones could get them in white; the older ones had black. But they were Converse, and that was it.
Today they have come back, and kids wear them as a fashion thing. We wore them because that was all we had. Our great uniform for going to school was a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and Converse shoes.
Weights. When you are running a race, there are many things that are legitimate in your life that can become weights: your friends, special attachments, things you are attached to, your own desires, and the things you pursue because you think they will make you happy.
Sometimes the Lord will ask you to lay those things aside so you can run the race and pursue Him. Not everything, but those weights. The Lord knows what they are, and He lets you know. He asks you to lay those weights aside.
As I say, these can be very legitimate things—not sinful in themselves—but they have become a weight in your life. They make it very difficult for you to run this race and pursue Christ. Lay aside the weights.
That was the first thing I saw in Genesis 23: Abraham’s declaration that he was a stranger and a pilgrim, sixty-two years in the land and still a stranger and a pilgrim.
The second thing was that he was possessing a gravesite for his wife—the place of death. As you look at the chapter, you might get discouraged because it speaks of Sarah’s death and Abraham negotiating to get a burial plot. After sixty-two years, he did not even have a piece of land large enough to bury his wife in. He sure did not have a very successful life, did he?
Think about it. Today, success means we have at least one car for every child old enough to drive, that we have at least one house and maybe a beach house or a mountain house. This year, you need a mountain house. There are so many things: a boat, or whatever. I had to get John in there—necessary. It is not John’s boat; it is his son’s boat. Anyway, it is necessary.
These things can weigh us down, brothers and sisters. We have to come to the place of death. What do I mean? We need to possess this place of death.
What I am really trying to say is that the death of our Lord Jesus is the beginning of our life. We need to have a firm foundation in what Calvary’s cross means to you and me. We have to really possess that, because it is the work of the cross that will bring you into life with God.
The only thing that allows you to enter into God’s presence is the work of Calvary. You can only enter in by the blood of Jesus Christ and His broken body, as the table we took this morning testifies. It is the place of death.
Not only has Christ died, but you need to come into the good of being crucified with Him. In other words, you need to die. That is why I read the Scripture from Luke 9:23:
If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.
Lance asked us what we were going to do about this self-life. What are you going to do about it? Just live with it? Or are we going to diligently exercise our spiritual strength and say no to the self-life, self-desire, self-purpose, self-interest, and self-love? Are we going to say no to it and take up the cross?
What does taking up the cross mean? I want to make it very simple: when the Lord’s will crosses your will, that is your cross.
Often things come into our lives that we cannot do anything about, and we have to learn to receive the grace of God to live with them. Some say, “Well, that is the cross.” Well, not exactly.
The cross is how you deal with it. Are you going to deal with it the Lord’s way, or are you going to do it your way? When His will crosses your will, are you going to yield, deny yourself, and say, “Lord, I am going to take up Your cross. I am going Your way”?
Let me say it another way: Christ has died for you; now you must die for Him. That sounds like legal works, does it not? But what I am saying is that you have been crucified with Christ on the cross. He has actually done it.
Yet, in reality, on this earth and in your life, you must agree with that death and accept it. You must say, “Lord, I believe I have been crucified with You. In this situation, You want me to do this, and I do not want to do it. But I am going to take my place of death.”
Why is this important? Because taking the place of death allows the life of Christ to work in you. It allows resurrection life to come out. There can be no resurrection life unless there is first a death.
This is something that occurs over and over in our lives. Brothers and sisters, more than resurrection life, the Lord wants us to learn to live the ascended life. Even more than the ascended life, He wants us to learn to live the life of the throne—the throne life, the overcoming life.
Resurrection is life out of death. It is the life of the Lord Jesus working in you. The ascended life is being able to be in the fray while still being above it. The throne life is being able to take the victory of Christ and apply it to the situation in your life.
But it begins at that burying place. It begins at the cross. Take up your cross and follow Him.
If we bypass the cross, if we choose not to do God’s will, we will live a religious life, if we are still interested in the Lord. We will begin to follow certain rules that make us comfortable and soothe our conscience before the throne.
Let me say it another way: if we will not take the place of death, then we will substitute our good self for resurrection life. We will substitute our good self for resurrection life.
There are many things in you that you can do that are good. They are not evil or bad, but the power is from you. It is called the good self. But it is poisoned.
My brother Lance said it very well: the self-life is poisoned. Whether it acts good or acts bad, it still has the poison there, and it will destroy the work of God in your life.
If we are not really going on with the Lord, if we are not willing to take up the cross, we will substitute the good self for resurrection life.
Secondly, we will not know the ascended life. We may substitute some self-satisfaction, but it is not ascended life. Self-satisfaction is when everything is going along pretty well and you are pleased.
But the ascended life is when things may be difficult, but they do not have you. They do not have a hold on you. You are not under them; you are above them. That is ascended life. What a poor substitute self-satisfaction is for the ascended life.
Lastly, instead of knowing the overcoming life, the throne life, we will substitute strong self-will for the overcoming life. Willpower becomes how we get through, instead of God’s power.
The throne life is the victory of the Lord in a situation—the ability to lay hold of His victory rather than struggling through self-will to have victory on your own.
Abraham learned tremendous lessons, and he was still learning. He was still a stranger and a sojourner even in his old age. Thank the Lord for that. He did not give up. He did not stop short.
There were times when he faltered and failed, but the Lord met him. The Lord pursued him. When the Lord pursued him, Abraham responded. When he responded, the Lord’s life was there to carry him on.
Thank the Lord that, at the end of his life, he was still a stranger to this world. He was still a pilgrim on that journey to find more of God, to find that city for which God was looking.
There were times when Abraham sinned. There was unbelief in his life. There were weights, because when he left, he was supposed to leave everything, but he brought Lot with him and brought his father with him. They became weights.
They were very legitimate things—his nephew and his father. They were not sinful, but they were weights, and they held him down. Yet the Lord freed him from all of that. Praise the Lord, Abraham pressed on. He was back in the race.
He learned that God’s will was the only will that was right in his life. I think he learned a great deal when he tried to do God’s will in his own strength and Ishmael was born. Then the Lord did not speak to him for thirteen years. That was a great lesson.
The Lord said, “I cannot have any of that in My kingdom.” But praise God, the Lord was faithful. He returned to Abraham, Abraham got back on the journey, and Isaac was born—the promise. Hallelujah.
May the Lord encourage us this morning. Being a stranger and a sojourner is a very practical matter for all of us to deal with, as is taking up our cross daily.
Lord, we come to Thee. We thank You, Lord, that You have pursued us all our lives. Lord, we want to be pursuing You. Forgive us if we settle down, if we fall short, if we become offended, discouraged, faint, and out of the way.
Draw us back up, Lord. Draw us once again to Yourself, and we will run after Thee. Lord, give us that faith which believes what we believe in. Give us that heart that wants to press on and not be satisfied with the things of this world.
Lord, do a work in our hearts. I know You have been drawing all of us recently back to Yourself, back to You having first place. That is what we want, Lord. We want You to have first place.
In Jesus’ name, amen.