My Christmas Wish

By David Hobbs, Christmas of 2014

Everybody’s allowed a Christmas wish, right? My Christmas wish to the Lord is that He would grant me to communicate to one soul the meaning of God’s holiness so that they connect with it.  If you are reading this, pray that you might be the one, because it’s the most precious revelation.

Luke recounts the story where Jesus went to eat at a Pharisee’s house. Though Christ was treated cavalierly by His host, one woman of scandalous reputation approached Him weeping, washed His feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair, then kissed and anointed them with fragrant oil (Luke 7:37-38).

There is something about the holiness of God, the forgiveness of sin, His overflowing love and electrifying presence that can intertwine in the most precious revelation. We don’t have a word big enough to describe  it,  something ike the holovpresness of God. Very few in the Bible, even in Jesus’ day, seemed to receive the fullness of this revelation. But this woman did. And Martha’s sister Mary did when she refused to give up her place at Jesus’ feet in order to wait tables [Luke 10:38-42].  She confirms it shortly thereafter when John records her breaking an alabaster box of very costly perfume and pouring it on Jesus’ feet [John 12:3] (Mark’s gospel says on His head [Mark 14:3]). is holiness

            Jesus hinted at it when He talked about the man who found a treasure in a field that was so valuable he went and sold everything he had in order to buy that field. Speaking of Himself, He said He was greater than Solomon, the richest and wisest man of his day, and greater than Jonah, who brought an entire evil kingdom to its knees with a one-sentence message. In fact, the Bible has so much to say about the greatness of Jesus that words can’t convey it. (Especially since words go to the head as intellectual knowledge, which falls far short.)

But these women understood it at the heart level, where it changed their lives forever! None of the disciples were recorded as having that deep a level of understanding, though they certainly had enough to follow Jesus wherever He went. But these humble women … it’s like they were immersed in His holiness, washed through and through by His purity, saturated by His love and forgiveness which coursed through their beings in glorious waves that words could not express.

            There is a little country church not far from here that I’ve never been to. But a friend who has tells me that whenever the pianist begins to play, a spirit of weeping comes over the congregation, including him. It’s as if the holiness of God invades the room, and weeping is the only possible response.

            I was in a prayer meeting last week where they put on some background music: a CD with just a piano playing. It was so beautiful and worshipful that I had a similar response—I was overcome by tears. It was a revelation of the inexpressible beauty of God.

            The Bible says that if we seek God we will find Him if we search for Him with all our hearts. As Christians we pray a lot, usually asking for things. But how many have sought the Lord until He came with a revelation of Himself like these women received? How many have prayed and asked Jesus to reveal Himself in His holiness, His absolute purity, His beauty and forgiveness that breaks their hearts in adoring love? That makes them like the man in the parable, willing to sell all they have if they could only buy the field containing this revelation?

That’s my Christmas wish—that there would be at least one person out there reading this who would seek the Lord until they connect with His holiness, until they are overcome by His love--until their life is ruined for anything but seeking more of Him.

The Greatest Gift

By David Hobbs

The word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. (Gen. 15:1)

The Lord has blessed me with a ministry in prayer. I came to that under-standing after a process of elimination. I realized I would never make a good pastor; I was a washout as an evangelist; I could prophesy but was not a prophet. I was a stumbling speaker, uninspiring as a teacher, a loner bereft of social graces, a “leader” everybody liked but nobody wanted to follow…. But as a pray-er, one-on-one with God—I found Someone who would overlook my awkwardness and see deeper into my heart where a passion smoldered for Him. And He in turn found in me someone who would pay the price--in loneliness, invisibility, and obscurity--to draw close to Him: someone who was not in a hurry; someone who had nowhere else to go.
It was a calling made in heaven.
I remember how exciting it was to discover that I could literally call heaven down to earth. As God says so poetically in Job 38:34, I could “raise [my] voice to the clouds and cover [myself] with a flood of water [the refreshing Presence of the Holy Spirit].” I didn’t have to wait for the next church service, I could touch God in prayer almost at will. So I gave myself to prayer.

It was also exciting to realize that I was now meeting the qualifications of Hebrews 11:6—“anyone who comes to [God] must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” I was now earnestly seeking God, what might my reward be?
I used to ponder that question and fantasize on the possible answer. Would it be some great spiritual gift, such that I could enter a hospital and empty the sickbeds? Maybe it would be a financial blessing whereby I could fully fund the missionaries. Maybe it would be my book on the bestseller list with multitudes being saved because of my testimony. Maybe maybe maybe. Thus did my mind wander.
All the while I was having great experiences in God: walking around the church in the middle of the night pouring out my heart to Him in song, being overcome with weeping so I couldn’t sing anymore, weeping at the revelation of His love for me though the cross, at His passion in seeking me out from the depths of my sin, His stubborn refusal to give me over to the depravity I chose for myself--the many times He refused to give up on me. Other times He let me declare His word at the top of my voice under a powerful anointing of the Holy Spirit, which I could feel breaking down the kingdom of darkness all around me. Still other times He let me pour out my heart to Him in song in what I knew were command performances for the angels (“The angels have requested that you sing ‘How Great Thou Art’ one more time, and be sure to hit that real high note at the end!”). And all the while I was wondering, “This is so great, what could my reward possibly be in addition to all this?” Ha!
Then one day it dawned on me…. How could I have been so blind? I didn’t have some grand reward waiting out there that He was going to drop in my lap someday. He was my great reward, and I’d been getting it all along! Like He said to Abram, “I am thy exceeding great reward!” He was that treasure hidden in a field that when a man found he went and sold all he had so he could buy that field. There was no possible reward on earth anywhere greater than Himself, not the 76 virgins awaiting the Muslims, not Nirvana awaiting the Buddhists, not the streets of gold nor heavenly mansions nor eternal life nor anything else that could be named.
I’m amazed at the theology revealed in some of our Christian songs. Just the titles say it all: “If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again,” and “Heaven Won’t Be Heaven (Without You).”
Or how about these lyrics:

Let's meet by the river over on that beautiful shore,
Let's meet by the river where loved ones dwell who've gone on before;

If you leave me standing here on this earth just wait by the river,
It's such a good place for us to meet over there;
And after I find you let's go see Jesus,

Our deepest longings, even in the afterlife, are for family and friends. But “after I find you,” then “let’s go see Jesus!”
Friends friends friends! He is our exceeding great reward. Anyone who hasn’t realized that yet hasn’t had a sufficient revelation of Jesus. That revelation in itself is a great reward, because it will keep us from pursuing lesser things all our lives and being greatly disappointed in that day when all our earthly sandcastles wash away in the waves of eternity. He is our exceeding great reward. Seek Him diligently and then ask for the reward of that most precious revelation!