However, in the busyness of our modern lives, we spend little time with Jesus and wonder why we have so little power. We wonder why the church lacks power to heal broken marriages, lives wrecked by depression and alcoholism and hearts addicted to pornography. Our lives are frantic, busy and powerless because we do not take time to “stand before the

We sacrifice for what satisfies. The soul-satisfying riches in the presence of God propel us out of our comfort zones, calling us out of the warm confines of our beds to our knees in early-morning prayer and meditation on God’s Word. Only these soul-satisfying riches can sustain us in the rigors of God’s calling on our lives as we move out to

Icons do not point to themselves, but icons usher in a far greater reality. Similarly, we represent God so that our presence ushers in the presence of the Almighty God wherever we go.

Often the demands of ministering to people expose our inadequacies, and we become depressed since their needs exceed our resources. However, these excessive demands remind us that we are only icons. We are not the answer! We are created as icons through which the glories of God’s presence shine. Jesus Christ is the perfect image and icon of God

However, God’s image in us is restored through worship. Through Jesus Christ, the perfect image of God (Col 1:15), we worship him and “are being transformed into the same image (eikōn), from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18). Worship transforms us increasingly to reflect and represent God’s presence more clearly as his image and icon.

Our longings for satisfaction get frustrated in discontent. Our longings for significance get frustrated by our own inadequacies. J. R. R. Tolkien diagnoses the roots of our longing: “We all long for [Eden], and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane, is still soaked with a

When the protection of God’s word is removed, the temptations of this world grow far stronger.

In the ancient world, stones were not “joined together” with mortar, but were shaved down to fit perfectly together. Just as each stone was chipped away and refined to fit into something far more glorious, so God shapes and forms each believer (sometimes painfully) to be “joined together” into something far more glorious, the “dwelling place for

God made us for himself as his images in the Garden-temple in Eden (Gen 1–2). God’s presence gives life and purpose in Eden, so we should not wonder that “our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Him.”