Our interest in Christ

As I prepare to preach tomorrow in a community near our home, I am reminded how much I miss the regular process of preparing for the Lord's day and the pulpit ministry. Someone recently commented that to study is to engage in worship. Some of my greatest times are taken up with study because it puts me in contact with the truth of God's Word, which when incorporated into my life yields a more submissive, obedient and capable servant. I was reminded how little Christians engage in this particular desire for worship and how shallow our interests have become. C.S. Lewis speaks to this in his great work, "The weight of Glory."  He writes, "If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian Faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are too easily pleased."

I wonder how many of us fit that denunciation? For sure Jonathan Edwards was not a candidate, but rather spent his youthful and adult years pursuing the delight that can only be found through the worship that comes from fixing our attention on the Savior and reflecting upon his creative and sovereign craftsmanship.