"Once
we had no delight in God, and Christ was just a vague historical figure. What
we enjoyed was food and friendships and productivity and investments and
vacations and hobbies and games and reading and shopping and sex and sports and
art and TV and travel…but not God. He was an idea—even a good one—and a topic
for discussion; but he was not a treasure of delight.
Then something miraculous happened. It
was like the opening of the eyes of the blind during the golden dawn. First the
stunned silence before the unspeakable beauty of holiness. Then a shock and
terror that we had actually loved the darkness. Then the settling stillness of
joy that this is the soul’s end. The quest Is over. We would give anything if
we might be granted to live in the presence of this glory forever and ever.
And then, faith—the confidence that
Christ has made a way for me, a sinner, to live in his glorious fellowship
forever, the confidence that if I come to God through Christ, he will give me
the desire of my heart to share his holiness and behold his glory.
But
before the confidence comes the craving. Before decision comes delight. Before
trust comes the discovery of treasure….
Saving faith is the cry of a new
creature in Christ. And the newness of the new creature is that it has a new
taste. What was once distasteful or bland is now craved. Christ himself has
become a Treasure Chest of holy joy. The tree of faith grows only in the heart
that craves the supreme gift that Christ died to give: not health, not wealth,
not prestige, but God!"
~John Piper, Desiring God
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