One Thing - One Thing I Have Desired (Daily Devotional)

Hello and welcome to Living Supernaturally, the daily devotion of All People's church. We definitely hope and pray that you'll be blessed even as we study God's word together with the objective of applying it daily in our lives. When we look into the word of God, we see several places these words ‘one thing and these are spoken by different people in different contexts in different backgrounds and it's interesting to learn where they appear and what lessons we can actually derive from them and apply it in our lives. So, the first one that we're going to look at this word ‘one thing’ which is spoken by the psalmist and we're looking at Psalm chapter 27 and verse4, it says, ‘one thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: 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 holy temple.’ This is a psalm of David and when we look at these words, we might sometimes think that maybe everything was okay in David's life when he wrote these words, maybe everything is fine and he's spiritually really hungry after God and everything is in place. But actually, if we look at this psalm, the beginning of the psalm, David starts by saying, ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid?’ And then he goes on to talk about several scenarios. He says, "When the wicked come against me, an army may encamp against me, war may rise up against me, but in this I will be confident." The psalmist is talking about the encounter that he has had with God leading to this confidence in his heart, saying that this one thing I will be confident that the Lord is my light and my salvation, which leads him saying that the one thing that he requires or one thing that he needs, one thing I have desired of the Lord and that will I seek that I may dwell in the house of the lord. The second thing that we see is that obviously his time with the Lord or his time in the presence of the Lord has enriched him so much that he comes to that place of saying this is the one thing in my life. Yes, enemies may encamp around me, war might rise up against me, but this one thing I need, this one thing I desire greatly and that will I seek. The third thing that we see is he enjoys the presence of God so much. So, the question that we need to ask ourself is this. Do we enjoy Him? Do we enjoy His presence or do we endure His word and the leading of the Spirit? Do we just endure it or is it something that we look forward to and is it something that we enjoy? So that we can come to that place like David and say one thing I desire. Now when we look through the rest of the psalm, we see why David desires God so much and in other places in the psalms also he says, ‘As the deer pants for the water so my heart and soul longs after Him.’ And he says, ‘my flesh cries out after the living God.’ When we read the rest of the psalms, we see this, he says ‘when your heart said seek my face, my heart said to you, your face oh Lord I will seek.’ Then he goes on to say, "Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me in a smooth path." He also testifies and he says, "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me." And he goes on to say, "I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." And finally, he wraps up the psalm by saying, "Wait on the Lord. Be of good courage and he will strengthen your heart. Wait, I say on the Lord.” So, obviously the psalmist enjoys the presence of God, he's enriched by the presence of God and he has a revelation when he has this encounter in the presence of God, leading up to all these testimonies and his sure faith and confidence in God. So, the question we can ask ourselves is, do I seek God so much? Do I desire God? Is God my ‘one thing’? If God is our one thing, if God is your one thing and my one thing, we will also have similar testimonies where we can say I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see the hand of the Lord, the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living and all these testimonies. So, today as we pray, let's ask the Lord, Lord, I want to make you my ‘one thing’. I want to seek first your kingdom and your righteousness so all these other things can be added in my life and I can testify of your goodness. Shall we pray? Father, we thank you even as we read through this psalm, we thank you for your goodness, we thank you for what you can do even as we wait on you. You turn things around, you strengthen us, you refresh us, Lord, seasons of refreshing come from your presence. And Father God, even as the psalmist testifies, we want to make you our ‘one thing’. Change our hearts, renew our thoughts and may we treasure your presence and may we seek after your presence, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
Thank you for tuning in to Living Supernaturally, for more resources to strengthen your spiritual walk, please visit apcwo.org.

Daily devotions to strengthen your faith each day. Daily Devotional for Spirit filled living. Each daily devotion is about five minutes in duration. These daily devotionals are centered around a weekly theme. So there are seven daily devotions that focus on the theme and bring you insight, understanding and revelation from the Bible. Each week's theme is listed as a series. So you can listen to the current week's devotions or go to any previous theme/series that speaks to your present need (https://apcwo.org/resources/daily-devotions ). Also available free sermons (https://apcwo.org/sermons), and free Christian books (https://apcwo.org/books) to nourish and strengthen your faith.