Psalm 87

I learned from commentaries that this psalm both 1) emphasizes the significance of the earthly Zion where God met His people in an intimate and special way, and, 2) prophesies the heavenly Zion and a time when, as psalm 86 put it, “all the nations you have made will come and worship before you, O Lord; they will bring glory to your name.” History is moving toward the time when men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation that were purchased for God with the blood of the Lamb will gather round and worship Him. Are you and I looking forward to that time?

I don’t understand much about the book of Revelation, but I know that it basically describes that time; the time when Christ will come in glory to judge and rule over all the earth. If you and I are looking forward to that time, what are you and I most looking forward to? Is it that we will see loved ones? Or, that there will be no more pain and suffering? Or, that we will finally be free from this body of sin?

I am re-reading “God is the Gospel” written by, you guessed it, John Piper. In it, he asks the question, “Would you be happy in heaven if God was not there?” He says:

My point in this book is that all the saving events and all the saving blessings of the gospel are means of getting obstacles out of the way so that we might know and enjoy God most fully. Propitiation, redemption, forgiveness, imputation, sanctification, liberation, healing, heaven – none of these is good news except for one reason: they bring us to God for our everlasting enjoyment of him. If we believe all these things have happened to us, but do not embrace them for the sake of getting to God, they have not happened to us. Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. It’s a way of overcoming every obstacle to everlasting joy in God. If we don’t want God above all things, we have not been converted by the gospel.

Statements such as, “people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there” and, “Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God” and, “If we don’t want God above all things, we have not been converted by the gospel” are very sobering to me. It surely makes me ask myself, what am I treasuring above all else? And, that’s what drew me to read this book again. I find myself slipping into treasuring God’s good gifts above God Himself and the principles in this book warn me of the danger of this. Not that I am afraid that I am not going to heaven, but, that I am missing the point of my salvation, and that is, seeing and savoring God.

Oh Lord, do what you need to do in my life so that I see and savor you above all else.