At His feet

In fellowship sweet with our Lord every hour,
Content in His arms, resting all the day long
Come sit at His feet and His loveliness savour;
In the Savior’s dear presence is where we belong.

“Out, world and your glamour, your noise, and your clamour.
“I want to be here with my Savior, secure.”
The love in His eyes as He watches the children
Is urgently prodding to keep ourselves pure.

The churning and changing, the struggles and straining,
The froth builds between our dear Lord and ourselves
A little neglect, soon the world’s scales start forming,
Till we’re blind to the glory of heavenly realms.

Far, far are we driven by the tempter’s beguiling,
By the sights and the dazzle; Lord put forth Your arm
To snatch us from dreams and the rainbows we’re chasing,
To learn to be still in Your meekness and calm.

-n-

O Lord, how long?

Christians look forward to the return of the Lord Jesus. We long to be able to see our Lord face to face—
He who gave His life as a ransom for our sins,
He whose righteousness covers us and makes it possible for us to be at peace with a holy God who cannot tolerate sin,
He who will bear the marks of that sacrifice into eternity,
He who stooped down down down to raise us up
—we long to see Him.

Yet another reason for this yearning is the fact that until He comes or until we ourselves die, whichever is sooner, we have to persevere and live holy lives. We hold on thus, despite having a sinful nature that is ever ready to compromise holiness in thought, word, and action.

What is our motivation? Is it the fear of losing the benefits of the grace of God? Are we afraid that God, like an angry warden, will throw us out if we sin? Nay, the Bible promises us that as long as we have truly repented and believe, He will never let us go. The Bible also tells us that once we have come into His fold, every time we sin, we can go to Him in penitence, confess our sin, and be forgiven.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 Jn 1:9)

Why do we not then use this as a license for sinning? Why do we strive to be holy? We do so because God has changed us and given us a new heart and, having become new creatures spiritually, we are now programmed differently, to hate sin.

Yet, we are still in the body of sin with its sinful tendencies. So although holiness is what we want, it still is an effort to keep sin in check.

. . . we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope . . . if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. (Romans 8:23-25)

We need to endure and hold on. We yearn to endure and hold on. We will endure and hold on. We cannot but endure and hold on. And what a relief it will be when He comes, when the redeeming work in our lives is completed and we get new sinless bodies to match the change that has begun in our hearts.

Here is a poem I wrote in 1996 that reflects this yearning.

As a child

I sit on His knee
‘Fore the Book open wide,
At the place
Where the Lord
Calmed the storm,
Stilled the tide.

Turn the pages
And a young man
With a stone
Felled a giant;

Turn again
To see angels
Close the mouth
Of hungry lions;

Split the sea
The enemy’s routed;
Fall the walls
When triumph shouted;

A queen saved her people
In a faraway land;
Against God’s will
Whoever could stand!

What a Book!
What a Lord!

As we travel the sod,
Do we need to every worry
Flustered in a frenzied hurry?

What a show!
What a sight!
What a Savior
And what might!

And to think
As a child
On His knee,
I sit still
‘Fore the Book open wide,
As my heart drinks its fill.

Here I’ll stay,
Here abide,
All my life,
As a child.

-n-