"One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple" (Psalm 27:4).

We often hear the expression "heavenly." Well, no person can be "heavenly" unless he lives in heaven. The fact is, we all have too much of a tendency to put off heaven until we die. We think of it as the place where God is and where Christ is, and it is the resource for us when we leave this world, when we leave our bodies behind us. When we cannot live any longer here, we go to heaven. Or, it may be, if you advance a little upon that, when a person has everything blighted and ruined down here, and there is not a single thing left, then he turns to heaven. It is like a person taking refuge from the storm and, when the storm is over, coming out again to enjoy the things around. Is that the case with you and me, beloved friends? That is the natural tendency of our hearts. We have very poorly, if at all in our souls, the thought of continuously abiding in that wonderful place where God is free to express Himself in all the infinite fullness of His love to us. He does not express Himself to us here. He gives us His care, His sympathy, His help, His cheer, His solace; He takes us by the hand, and leads us along the way, every step of the journey:but He does not express Himself to us here. He does there_ that is the difference. That is what I feel we lack, every one of us, in these days_a more habitual dwelling in the house of the Lord.

You may depend upon it, we should be a different kind of people altogether if we dwelt there by faith. Dwelling is not visiting there, not running there for shelter out of the storm, but knowing it as home, with all the joys of home. Do you know what these joys are? Home! we are not driven there through sheer necessity, but drawn by its attractiveness. What do you know of the attractions of that blessed One who is up there? We have not a mere doctrine or theory, but a divine, living, adorable, blessed, transcendent Person for our affections. We know a Person who has an attractiveness peculiar to Himself and one who throws this attractiveness and blessedness and beauty connected with Himself around the affections of my heart. I am not, as I said, driven by mere necessity from all the things that are round about me here, but I am attracted by the beauties and blessedness and glories of that scene where Christ is everything to God, and where God delights to express Himself in all His fullness. There is the place I long more to dwell in, to live in, to abide in; that is the place I desire to know as my home, and that is the one thing the Psalmist speaks of here. To me, it is a beautiful instance of the expression of this divine life in a person_the life of God:"One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life."

Now I see all this in its perfection in Christ as a man. We get it in that beautiful passage, "No man hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, the Son of Man" _ who was in heaven. Is that it? No. "[Who] is in heaven" (John 3:13). Take Him as a Man (He was the mighty God, the Creator and Preserver of all things, as well)_as the perfect Man, He who walked that magnificent, blessed, shining pathway that we have traced out for us in the gospels, and which, by the Holy Ghost, we can read and think over and delight in. Was it not this continuous, blessed, wonderful communion, with all that belonged to that blessed place from whence He came, that so marked His way? As He said, "I know whence I came, and whither I go." There was all that blessed distinctiveness and separateness about His walk here. Is there, in our measure, that about us? Are we like people who know where we are going? Is that the thing which day by day is telling itself out in your business, in your home, in your social life, in your families? What I am speaking of is a practical thing. It goes down into the most minute circumstances of our daily life. There is to be this blessed testimony stamped upon it, that "I dwell in the house of the Lord." What sort of people should we be if there were that distinctiveness? about us, and divine satisfaction and rest!

May that be true of us which is expressed in the lines of the hymn:

"We are but strangers here, we do not crave A home on earth which gave Thee but a grave; Thy cross has sever’d ties which bound us here, Thyself our treasure in a brighter sphere." This is the real truth:Christ our treasure in heaven, and only His cross on earth. The glory is the place of our treasure, and the cross defines our path on earth. May our hearts be encouraged to press on; it is only for a little while. The darkest moment is that immediately preceding the dawning of the day.