Jen and I had a long-distance relationship before we were married. The first time I flew up to see her, she moved out of her bedroom and let me sleep there. I carried my suitcase down to her room to get settled, and as soon as I opened the door, I smelled her perfume. It was in the air, on the pillows, on the sheets. All around me was the smell of the woman I loved. It was like Zach-nip. I got tingly and light-headed; my pulse raced. That was the smell of my beloved. Wonderful. Exciting. Intoxicating. I just sat down on the edge of the bed and breathed her in.
But I hadn’t come all that way just to smell the aroma of where she had once been. I came to woo a bride. I came to spend time in her presence. How foolish would it have been for me to stay in her room, satisfied with her fragrance, when she was right upstairs waiting for me to wrap her in my arms?
Why be satisfied with her perfume when I could have her presence? So I got up and went to her.
I later learned that Jen knew exactly what she was doing. That perfume was not designed to satisfy me, it was designed to make me want more of her.
It’s the same with worship.
How many times do we come to church, worship Jesus, sense His presence with us, breathe in the heady, intoxicating sense of His nearness and then get in our cars to go to lunch and have say things like, “Boy, I could really sense the Lord there today”? Then, we go about our lives, waiting until the next weekend when we’ll get another whiff of His fragrance.
If all we do in worship is enjoy the sense of His presence, we’ve missed the point. The “perfume” of God isn’t meant to satisfy us, it’s meant to make us hungry for more of Him—to draw us closer to Him.
We don’t worship God so that we can enjoy the fragrance of Him passing. If we love Him, we cannot be satisfied with His perfume. We must have His presence.
That was the difference between the crowds and the woman with the issue of blood in Luke 8. She was medically incurable. She couldn’t afford to be satisfied with seeing Jesus. She wasn’t interested in sensing the signs of His passing; she had to have the touch of God. She pushed through the crowd to get more than a look, more than a whiff, more than a moment’s brush with glory. She pushed through to grasp God Himself, and she was healed.
A worshipper is a person who won’t be satisfied with anything less than God Himself.
As you go to the Lord today in prayer, remember this: worship isn’t meant to satisfy you; it’s meant to stir your hunger for God’s presence. Worship sets your heart and life on a pursuit of the will and presence of God. It’s the calling of your life—to pursue the Father who is pursuing you. If you allow Him, God will put a hunger in you that can only be satisfied by grasping God Himself.
Zach Neese Gateway Church Southlake Texas
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