From Jonathan Edwards', "Works 2," Chapter XI., Miscellaneous Observations, Heaven (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/works2.xii.v.html):

Such is the contrivance of our redemption; thereby we are brought to an immensely more glorious and exalted kind of union with God and enjoyment of him, both the Father and the Son, than otherwise could have been. For, Christ being united to the human nature, we have advantage for a far more intimate union and conversation with him than we could possibly have had if he had remained only in the divine nature. So, we being united to a divine person, can in him have more intimate union and conversation with God the Father, who is only in the divine nature, than otherwise possibly could be. Christ, who is a divine person, by taking on him our nature, descended from the infinite distance between God and us, and is brought nigh to us, to give us advantage to converse with him. This was the design of Christ, to bring it to pass that he, and his Father, and his people, might be brought to a most intimate union and communion, John xvii. 21, 22, 23. “That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me; and the glory which thou hast given me have I given them, that they may be made perfect in one.” Christ has brought it to pass, that those that the Father has given him should be brought into the household of God, that he, and his Father, and they should be as it were one society, one family, that his people should be in a sense admitted into the society of the Three Persons in the Godhead. In that family or household, God is the Father; Jesus Christ is his only-begotten and eternal Son; the saints, they also are children in the family, they have all communion in the same Spirit, the Holy Ghost.

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May God's Holy Spirit increase our understanding of and experiential acquaintance with the privileges that are already ours as the Bride of Christ – those "great and glorious possibilities of the Christian life" of which Martyn Lloyd-Jones spoke – privileges which are available to us not only in heaven, but privileges which are to be sought and embraced and enjoyed in this life, due to the Word becoming flesh! My prayer for myself, as well as for all the saints, is that the words of Isaac Watts ("Come, We That Love the Lord") would be our living testimony...

The men of grace have found,
Glory begun below.
Celestial fruits on earthly ground
Celestial fruits on earthly ground
From faith and hope may grow,
From faith and hope may grow.

The hill of Zion yields
A thousand sacred sweets
Before we reach the heav’nly fields,
Before we reach the heav’nly fields,
Or walk the golden streets,
Or walk the golden streets.

Unacquaintedness with our mercies, our privileges, is our sin as well as our trouble. ~ John Owen, "Of Communion with God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost"

The doctrine of justification by faith –– a Biblical truth, and a blessed relief from sterile legalism and unavailing self-effort –– has in our time fallen into evil company and been interpreted by many in such manner as actually to bar men from the knowledge of God. The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless. Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego. Christ may be "received" without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver. The man is "saved," but he is not hungry nor thirsty after God. In fact he is specifically taught to be satisfied and encouraged to be content with little.

The modern scientist has lost God amid the wonders of His world; we Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His Word. We have almost forgotten that God is a Person and, as such, can be cultivated as any person can. It is inherent in personality to be able to know other personalities, but full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter. It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of both can be explored.

All social intercourse between human beings is a response of personality to personality, grading upward from the most casual brush between man and man to the fullest, most intimate communion of which the human soul is capable. Religion, so far as it is genuine, is in essence the response of created personalities to the Creating Personality, God. "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou has sent.". . .

To have found God and still to pursue Him is the soul's paradox of love, scorned indeed by the too-easily-satisfied religionist, but justified in happy experience by the children of the burning heart. St. Bernard stated this holy paradox in a musical quatrain that will be instantly understood by every worshipping soul:

We taste Thee, O Thou Living Bread,
And long to feast upon Thee still;
We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead
And thirst our souls from Thee to fill.

. . . How tragic that we in this dark day have had our seeking done for us by our teachers. Everything is made to center upon the initial act of "accepting Christ" (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the Bible) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him we need nor more seek Him...

. . . Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present, or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.

Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all.

~ A.W. Tozer, excerpts from Chapter I, Following Hard after God in "The Pursuit of God," first published in 1948.

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Psalm 63:8 My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.

Is your soul following hard after Him – or are you ensnared by the deadly foe complacency and tangled in the web of religious complexity?

"Those who think they have grace enough give proof that they have little enough, or rather that they have none at all; because, wherever there is true grace, there is a desire of more grace, and a pressing towards the perfection of grace." ~ Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on Philippians 3:13.

O LORD our God, incline our hearts, souls, minds, and strength to follow hard after You, to cling to You, to hold fast to You, and not to let You go. God forbid we be too-easily-satisfied religionists at ease in Zion –– but rather may we be diligent to make our calling and election sure, and show ourselves to be Your purchased possession – children of the burning heart. Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon us that we might be found in the company of the Shulamite woman:– zealously and jealously pursuing, panting, and pressing on for You with a holy violence!

Song of Solomon 3:1  By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. 2  I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not. 3  The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth? 4  It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

Matthew 11:12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. 

"Note, They who would enter into the kingdom of heaven must strive to enter; that kingdom suffers a holy violence; self must be denied, the bent and bias, the frame and temper, of the mind must be altered; there are hard sufferings to be undergone, a force to be put upon the corrupt nature; we must run, and wrestle, and fight, and be in an agony, and all little enough to win such a prize, and to get over such opposition from without and from within. The violent take it by force. They who will have an interest in the great salvation are carried out towards it with a strong desire, will have it upon any terms, and not think them hard, nor quit their hold without a blessing, Gen. xxxii. 26. They who will make their calling and election sure must give diligence. The kingdom of heaven was never intended to indulge the ease of triflers, but to be the rest of them that labour. It is a blessed sight; Oh that we could see a greater number, not with an angry contention thrusting others out of the kingdom of heaven, but with a holy contention thrusting themselves into it!" ~ from Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on Matthew 11.

 (Scripture quotations are taken from the KJV.)

What is a nominal Christian?
Moderation in pursuing God? An answer from Jonathan Edwards
Moderation in pursuing God? An answer from George Whitefield
How’s your spiritual appetite? (Jonathan Edwards)
consider … our ways, the great cloud of witnesses, Susanna Anthony
Amazing Grace . . . upon Grace ~ the 240th anniversary
Thank Him for a little grace, and ask Him for great grace ~ Spurgeon | letter 158 on assurance & joy

In my last post, "Why do you watch the same movie over and over?" I wrote:

Many of us know the enjoyment from watching a favorite movie (or reading a book or listening to a piece of music or a sermon) over and over again... How much more ought that to be the case when we come to the Bible, which is breathed out by God, and when we come to Jesus Christ Himself, who IS the Word of God?

Because the Word of God is beautiful.
Because the Word of God is interesting.
Because the Word of God has a lot of layering that takes at least a few reads to unravel the mystery. . .

How sad to say how very few Christians relish time in the Word of God in anticipation of His descending upon the mercy seat! Consider that we have access into the Most Holy Place through our Savior's precious blood –– are too many of us making light of His sacrifice and trampling on the blood of the Lamb? ~ Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by?

How few professing Christians consider time with God in His Word to be a privilege and a delight –- and how contrary that attitude is to the pattern we find in the Psalms, where we read of the children of God panting, longing, and thirsting for the living God! –– or those in Jesus' day went all out for a touch from the Master or to grab hold of His garment! In contrast, for many today Bible reading is seen as one of many items on our daily to-do list. We take our few minutes with God, we check off our list, and we go our way. Well, we claim we have met with God, but I wonder what He would He say to that claim?

Prior to beginning his exposition on the book of Hosea, Jeremiah Burroughs gave this introduction, which I found to be a very fitting follow-up to that post.

We might preface our work by labouring to raise your hearts to the consideration of the excellency of the Scriptures in general. Luther uses a high expression about them; he calls them the highest genus, that contains in it all good whatever. Take away the Scripture, and you even take away the sun from the world. What is the world without the Scriptures, but hell itself? We have had indeed the word of God as the sun in the world, but oh how many mists have been before this sun! Seldom the sun shines clearly to us. Seeing there is such a glorious sun risen, it is distressing that there should be a misty day. Now the work to which we are called is, to dispel the mists and fogs from before this sun, that it may shine more brightly before your eyes and into your hearts...

Chrysostom in his twenty-ninth sermon upon Genesis, exhorting his auditors to get the Scriptures into their houses, and diligently to exercise themselves in them, tells them that by them the soul is raised, elevated, and brightened, as with the beam of the Sun of righteousness, and delivered from the snares of unclean thoughts. In the Scripture the great God of heaven has sent his mind to the children of men; he has made known the counsel of his will, and opened his very heart unto mankind. The Bible is the epistle that God has sent into the world. Did we but hear of a book dictated immediately by God himself, to show the children of men what the eternal counsels of his will were for conducting them to eternal happiness, and thoughts and intentions concerning their everlasting condition; did we, I say, but hear that there was such a book in the farthest part of the Indies, should we not rejoice that the world was blest with such a mercy? What strong and vehement desires should we have to enjoy but one sight of it before we died! We should be willing to venture upon any hazard, to pass through any difficulty, to be at any expense, that we might have but a glance at such a book as this. My brethren, you need not say, Who shall go to the farthest part of the Indies to fetch us this book? who shall descend into the depth, or go to the uttermost part of the earth, to gain us a sight of this book of Scripture? for, behold, the word is nigh unto you, it is in your houses, and we hope in your hearts, and in this exercise it is to be in our mouths, not only to tell you what it saith, but to explain to you the mind of God in it.

To exercise ourselves in this book is sweet indeed. Luther professes himself out of love with his own books, and wished them burn, lest men, spending time in them, should be hindered from reading the Scriptures, which are the only foundation of all wisdom:  I tremble, said he, at the former age, which was so much busied in reading Aristotle and Averroes.

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May our God forgive us for our weak and indifferent desires toward Him and His Word. May He impart to us strong and vehement desires for Himself and His Word. May God's Holy Spirit breathe into us a holy appetite for God and His Word, that we might taste, experience, and savor the sweetness of entering into, abiding in, and enjoying eternal happiness through the Lord Jesus Christ!

Reference: Jeremiah Burroughs, "An Exposition of the Prophecy of Hosea" (completed by Thomas Hall & Edward Reynolds, revised and corrected by James Sherman); (reprinted by Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2006; orig. published Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1863), 1-2.

Photo credit: Work found at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Honey_comb.jpg> / CC BY-SA 3.0.