THE BELIEVER’S MOTIVE
P. L. Johnson
The fourth verse is what I had really before me. I was thinking of that expression “One thing”. I think he has in mind the thought of a motive, and what I had before me was that motive is a more important feature than knowledge. One may have knowledge but the wrong motive. I am not despising knowledge but I really think that the primary thing that puts you on the right line is the motive, if the motive is right. I was thinking of the psalm in this way,
“One thing have I asked of Jehovah”, this was the real motive he had for his life. We know that in real life there are other things we can ask for, but he says “One thing” because he is bringing before us the motive, that is the primary thing. That is what I had an exercise to speak about, because really motive is more important than ability. We know that we cannot say we all have the same ability, one may have more ability to speak than another, one may have more of a studious nature than another, these abilities all vary; but the motive should be and can be the same in each and every one of the Lord’s people, regardless of our ability and knowledge.
I was struck recently while reading the Psalms how this verse brings out the thought of motive, “One thing have I asked of Jehovah, that will I seek after”, that is the thought of a motive, one thing that you have before you, that you seek after. I was thinking of the way this motive was set out, “that I may dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of my life”. We know, of course, that ‘dwelling’ speaks of where a person lives. That might be a thing to bring before us and to enquire and have an exercise about, where we live. Oh, you say, I live in So-and-so Street, but I am not talking about the physical place, I am talking about our life.
Where are we living, are we living in a self-made world, are we living in the
world that is all about us? I think that is what is involved here in the fact of a dwelling, as he says here that he would dwell in the house of the Lord. The house of Jehovah is not some physical place, but it means His dwelling, and all that has to do with His presence. So this exercise that one would desire to dwell in the house of the Lord is that his life would be in the presence of God. I think that is the thought of dwelling in the house of the Lord. Your life is in the presence of God, from morning till night, throughout the day everything that one does should be taken up in the Lord’s presence.
I believe it would be a real help to have this motive, this “One thing”. I was impressed in meditating on this today that we have so many things that occupy us and I thought, Well, this is the central one, this is the “One thing”, whatever else we may have to think about. We are still living in the body here in this world, and there are things we have to take care of and see to, but I think the thought of the “One thing” is that this is primary, everything else is secondary. The primary thing is to dwell in the presence of the house of the Lord. I think this would be an encouragement, an exercise for us, “all the days”. Well, we have to admit and confess that we sometimes are in and out, but here the thought is “all the days”. Every day, when we arise in the morning, we should be in the presence of the Lord that day, and the next day we should be in the presence of the Lord. It may be that we have to do with affairs of life, work, business, shopping, or whatever is needed, but it is all done in the presence of the Lord.
My exercise, beloved brethren, is this, that we do not want to restrict being in the presence of the Lord to meetings. I think that sometimes there is a tendency, not purposely but inadvertently, to identify being in the presence of the Lord when we come together in assembly. But I was thinking that here, in this wonderful verse, “that I may dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of my life”, every one of them, not just a few days, but to dwell in the house of the Lord.
Then notice the next desire. “To behold the beauty of Jehovah”, not only to dwell in the house, but to have Him as the object. I am sure there is security in the house and there may be other features in the house, but you notice what he says here, “to behold the beauty of Jehovah”. Mr Darby has a note on that word “beauty”, he says, ‘graciousness’, which in a way is His beauty, but He comes across to us in the way of grace. I just thought how this is what we want, to behold His beauty. This has to be the object. Now, I know in one sense we have to do with affairs and things of this life, but it should not be the object; even though we have to go about daily affairs and some of us have to go to work, that should not be the object before us. We take these things up as responsibilities of life in this world, that is true, but the object really before us is not our business or our work, but it is to have the Lord as the object, even in going to work, even in taking up mundane things. The object is not just to have the mundane things taken care of but, even in them, the Lord is the object. That is what I was thinking of this wonderful verse, “to behold the beauty of Jehovah”. He is the object, to see Him in everything that we take up and do it as to Him. Though it be mundane affairs, even as people in our neighbourhood are doing for a livelihood, yet it is done by us as having the Lord as our object. Not man, or the world, not doing it just for man’s sake or my own sake, or anything that has to do with the world’s system and its movements, but it is to “behold the beauty of Jehovah”. This “One thing”, the one object should ever be before us.
Then we are not just to dwell in the house of the Lord and to have the Lord as an object, but also “to inquire of him in his temple”. I think enquiring of Him would have at least two thoughts. If you enquire you want to hear a response and also to learn from Him. I believe this should be an exercise too, that we hear the Lord’s voice, we hear Him and we learn from Him, that is to be involved in this “inquire of him”. I am glad Mr Darby has “of him” in brackets, indicating that it was his judgment to put those words there to have the right
object of our enquiry. It is not enquiring of men, but of Him, and I think Mr Darby’s translation is correct there. The desire is to enquire of Him in His temple, where he dwells, where He is; in other words, we come to Him. I am not saying that the Lord never speaks to us, He does. Sometimes it has to be in rebuke, but this is not the thought of being corrected or rebuked, it is the thought of learning from Him, and you do that by enquiring in His temple.
That is really where we shall get understanding and learning, it is from Him, in His presence.
We need to be in the sense of that, even in our reading of the Scriptures, that we do not just read them with the human intellect, but it should be a matter of hearing Him and learning from Him in the sanctuary. That is the attitude and spirit we should take up the Scriptures, so as to learn from Him the right way, from the right source, not just with human intellect and human understanding.
So, we have this “One thing”, then “to behold the beauty of Jehovah”, and “to inquire of him in his temple”. These are three features of the proper motive of the believer. You know motivation is a great thing, even in the world, in human understanding. Well, the believer is to be motivated in a right way. Of course, in the world, persons are motivated by ambition or, what they could gain, or something that will attribute things to them. We have often encountered the fact that motivation is important in doing a good job, but my exercise in regard to this thought of motivation is that we might have in mind the “One thing”. We may say, Well, there are many things we have to be concerned about. Yes, but the one thing is, if the motive is right, that we desire the presence of God, dwelling in the house, we have the Lord as the great object before us, and we hear from Him and learn from Him. That should be our motivation as we pass through this scene. May the Lord help us.
Word in meeting for ministry, Denton
3 August 2004