Psalm 27:4 "One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek GOD in the LORD’s temple." (NIV)

This scripture is the true definition of desire.  As humankind, we desire to see beauty.  It is part of our God-given DNA.

Many of us spend our lives on an endless quest, trying to hunt down that which we perceive to be beautiful.  Media and society feed us with a distorted perception of what beauty is, and so we go looking in the wrong places for it.  It doesn’t take us long before we realise we haven’t found the real thing, and we walk away, disillusioned and unsatisfied.

Time and again, we discover that the only beauty that really satisfies is the beauty of the Lord, and the immersion of ourselves in God’s presence, at the feet of Jesus.

Last week, we at DGFC celebrated Maundy Thursday in our Home Groups.  This is the day we commemorate Jesus’ famous last supper with His disciples, where He washed the disciples’ feet.  He revealed himself as the Servant King: even with the power of heaven in His hands, He chose to adorn himself with humility and grace, loving others.

This act of foot-washing, however, was also a foreshadowing of the complete work of the cross, where we would be purified of sin, washed by Christ’s blood.

When we position ourselves at His feet and worship, we are poised to surrender.  This is when Jesus can wash our feet of the stains of the world.  He cleanses us from the inside out, clearing out all the distortions of sin and all that we place above him, if only we would let him.

In this place of intimacy, we recognise that we have found the beauty - the “one thing” - that we’ve been spending our entire lives searching for.  When Mary, Martha’s sister, was at Jesus’ feet, He said that she had found the “one thing” that she needed (Luke 10:42).

There have been times where I’ve fallen back to old patterns of seeking to be satisfied by temporary and worldly things, because of my own distortions that God is still busy healing me from.  Being part of a local body of believers, and allowing the Spirit to minister to me through my leaders and those around me, has made the difference in letting God deliver me to a place of rather seeking the eternal beauty of the Lord’s presence.

Perhaps you are one who has found the beauty of the Lord, but you’ve become distracted by everything around you.  Maybe you have never experienced Jesus’ beauty and you are ready to give the Lord a chance to be your desire.  No matter where we find ourselves, Jesus is the One that satisfies, and wants to be our “one thing”.