Psalm 63:1-11 O God, you are my God; early will I seek you: my soul thirsts for you, my flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land… All mankind are athirst. The human soul is made capacious; so capacious that nothing else can fill it, but that immortality for which man is created, and the favour and enjoyment of that God whoso creature he is. There is a relationship between the Capacity of the soul and Him who ought to fill it, such that its happiness depends on its union with Him, and is derived entirely from Him; and man, even when ignorant of God and alienated from Him, finds no real satisfaction from any other source. I. ACCEPTANCE. This is the first stage of the desire after God, for it is the desire of the heart-stricken sinner (Psalm 27:9; Psalm 31:16; Psalm 35:8). II. ACQUAINTANCE WITH GOD. The desire for this must be a feature of the advanding Christian. Love begets love, and hence — "we love Him (God) because He first loved us," Now, in proportion as we love any one, we desire better acquaintance, in order that we may appreciate his excellences. III. The believer longs for COMMUNION WITH GOD. The more we love and reverence any one, the more must we long to be admitted to the privilege of intimacy, and the more highly shall we value that privilege, and fear its loss if we possess it. IV. The Christian's earnest desire is for CONFORMITY TO THE WILL AND TO THE IMAGE OF GOD. The faculty of imitation is instinctive. Hence the contagion of evil example; hence the instinctive imitation by children of their parents. This faculty is not destroyed in the believer, but, through grace, receives a new bias, his love and reverence for God naturally creating the desire to imitate His perfections, and thus to attain a growing conformity to His likeness. (R. J. Rowton, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: {A Psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.} O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; |
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