Sessions Include:

1. Do You Thirst for God?
2. Are You Increasingly Governed by God’s Word?
3. Are You Becoming More Loving?
4. Are You More Sensitive to God’s Presence?
5. Do You Have a Growing Concern for Others
6. Do You Delight in the Bride of Christ?
7. Are Spiritual Disciplines Increasingly Important?
8. Do You Still Grieve Over Sin?
9. Are You Quicker to Forgive?
10. Do You Yearn for Heaven?

So holy desire, exercised in longings, hungerings, and thirstings after God and holiness, is often mentioned in Scripture as an important part of true religion. -- JONATHAN EDWARDS

“LORD, I WANT TO KNOW YOU MORE,” sang Mike, just before the sermon. One of my seminary professors from years back, who was guest preacher at our church that Sunday morning, sat next to me on the front pew and listened, transfixed. As Mike continued to sing, I could hear my older friend sigh occasionally. When the song was over, T. W. sat motionless for so long I thought he had forgotten that he was now supposed to preach.

As I turned to remind him, I saw his shoulders lift and fall with the slow draw and release of his breath. Finally, he opened his eyes and stepped thoughtfully to the pulpit. He looked down for what seemed to be a full minute before he could speak. And then, “Lord, I do want to know You more.” Departing from his prepared words for a while, T. W.—the most prayerful man I’ve ever known—spoke of his thirst for God, his longings to know Christ more intimately and to obey Him more completely.

Here was a man who had followed Christ for more than fifty years still captivated by the sweetness of the quest. Although into his second half-century as a disciple of Jesus, the grace of growth still flourished in him.

It’s been many years since that Sunday morning. For more than a decade afterward I would see T. W. at least annually, and the things of God never diminished their magnetic pull on his heart’s aspirations. One of the last times I saw him happened when I found myself sharing a shuttle-bus ride with him from a denominational convention back to our hotel. Though nearly seventy by then, and weakened by cardiac surgery, his eyes flashed as he talked for half an hour about what he was learning about prayer. Even as his body declined, his longings for God displayed the growing strength of his soul.

The apostle Paul must have similarly impressed others in his day. Despite all his maturity in Christ, all he had seen and experienced, late in life Paul wrote of the passion that propelled him: “that I may know him” (Philippians 3:10). What? “That I may know him”? What is he talking about? Didn’t he already know Jesus more closely than perhaps anyone else ever will? Of course he did. But the more he knew Jesus, the more intimately he wanted to know Him. The more Paul progressed in spiritual strength, the more thirsty for God he became.

With a similar thirst, the writer of Psalm 42:1–2 prayed,

As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?

Does this describe your thirst for God? If so, be encouraged: Whatever else is transpiring in your Christian life, your soul-thirst is a sign of soul-growth.

Donald S. Whitney, Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health (NavPress; Tyndale House Publishers, 2021), vi–3.

Check out our Bible Study on Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health . A bible study on the book of Lamentations as well as some Psalms of Lament.

These lessons are available on Amazon, as well as a part of Good Questions Have Groups Talking Subscription Service. Like Netflix for Bible Lessons, one low subscription gives you access to all our lessons--thousands of them. For a medium-sized church, lessons are as little as $10 per teacher per year.