Self-examination

Listen, listen, all you who profess the name of Christ, I must question you!

Brace yourself, that I may question you, and open yourself up to answer.

Be honest and open, for there is one who peers into your heart, before whom you cannot but be honest whatever you say to yourself or to anyone else will pass to the ground. This is what you must seek, to align the secret paths of your word with your consciousness, to know yourself, to examine yourself and thus know what lies in the dark depths.

Tell me, then, professor, do you long for Christ to return?

Do you?

Search that heart, does joy spring up in it when you contemplate the return of Christ? Do you hunger for it? Is there a physical intensity to it?

You know, I'm sure, that the return of Christ is coming? That the Word of God, which has never failed and will never fail, states again and again that we followers of Christ live and sojourn now in the great gathering, the great bringing together of the sheep, that time that precedes and in all things looks to the great return, the day when we look up and see riding on the clouds the one for whom our soul was remade?

Do you believe that in your redemption you were truly remade, reworked, given a new heart and mind, a mind equipped to understand the word by the power of the Holy Spirit, and a heart designed to long after the things of God? That therefore in an essential way in your redemption you were made to long after Christ?

Have you read the Psalms and the intensity of David's longing as he cried out to God?

Do you recognize this pattern, the great pattern of all God's saints, that they are denied him though the long for him and that therefore they cry out?

Does your flesh cry out as all created things do for the return? For this is what the very ground does beneath, longing for the day when the sons of God will be revealed, when we will be remade?

What affections then, are left for the sorry things of this world? If your heart does not thrill, and listen my children, listen, there is no use pretending or playing, no, these is too serious a matter for play-acting to come in, for no one is impressed with you! Search your heart and bring to the fore your real emotions, for there is nothing fake before the presence of God, all that is false is burned away in the fire of his holiness! No, if your heart does not thrill, then ask it and ask yourself why.

Why do you not long for the one to whom you have professed such dear love?

Why is it that you do not long to see him return, though in your words and life you claim otherwise?

Where is your affection for him? Where has it gone?

Is your heart set on this poor world? When you think of the future, do thoughts of your earthly hopes and dreams crowd out what in truth should sit enthroned? And ask again, do you push aside all holy things to set before your mind the vanities of this world?

Listen, my children, listen, for these are the things of God and we must handle them with care lest we be consumed like the sons of Aaron. Do you claim his name as did Ananias and Sapphira yet present only a part of your affections onto him? Do you pretend in your obedience like Achan while holding back the wedge of gold that sits in your affections?

Ask yourself these things, please, please, please, for these are the matters of your eternal soul and Christ himself said that not everyone who said that not everyone who says to him 'Lord, Lord' will enter his presence finally. O I love you, I love you, and so I plead with you, treasure Christ, if he is not your dearest hope and delight than come to him in repentance and seek forgiveness.

Our hearts are imperfect, our longings mixed, and while we are in this flesh we will find ourselves struggling and striving against such things. But think on Christ, search your hearts, and long with me for his return! He is coming, and if you do not desire it above all else, then you will have no part in him when he arrives!