What's your obsession?

As I mentioned before, I'm reading Sam Storms' One Thing: Developing a Passion for the Beauty of God. Great book. Highly recommend it.

Storms pins the cause of lackluster faith and boredom with Christianity on our inability to see past petty pleasures to the encompassing greatness of God. We have no sense of anticipation for Christ's return because we have not come to love and yearn for the Bridegroom Himself and the future He's secured for us. Instead we muddle around in the mire of earth, thinking God is pleased with our little trinkets and tokens. Our hearts are not bound to our Savior in the glory of heaven, hence we have little (if any) understanding of David's declaration:

"You make know to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy;

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." Psalm 16:11

Psalm 16 is delicious. Brimming with sweet communion and long held trust, it is a love poem, a declaration of enduring, passionate commitment on behalf of both the speaker and the hearer, the poet and His God. David was a shepherd. He'd sat on the hills of Bethlehem and seen the wonders of the stars. He'd heard the stories of God's faithfulness passed down through the generations. He knew that the pleasures of God far outweighed the pleasures of sin. He was obsessed with the true beauty of his God.

I want this kind of passion for God; mere obedience void of emotion is not enough. There is something more spiritual, more Spirit induced, about it. Storms quotes Mark Bickle, saying, "It take God to love God."

"Loving God requires a loving God. We will be passionate for him only so far as he is passionate for us. To love God as we were made to love him requires and antecedent love in God for those whom he has made. He must take the initiative. He must reveal the depths and extent of his commitment to us and the delight in his heart for broken people. Only then will our slumbering and self-centered souls be aroused to seek him with all our hearts and relish the revelation of himself in the person of his Son, the man Christ Jesus." ~Sam Storms

Do we understand the passion of God for us? I know I don't; I haven't been looking. But One Thing has pulled back the curtain a bit more for me and challenged me to "Taste and see the the Lord is good" and know that "His love endures forever."

"Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 1 Peter 1:13

"...let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith..." Hebrews 12:1-2

"...seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above..." Colossians 3:1-2

"...look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen..." 2 Corinthians 4:18