Hello, and welcome back to the One Thing Podcast. I'm sure that it's dawning on many of our minds that summer has now begun. The kids are out of school and it is getting hot; we are in a new season. As I think about summer, I start to laugh to myself because I remember, especially as a teenager, what happened during the summer. Once or twice there would always be some either small or big family trip, a vacation, something different. And what would happen, you know, a week or maybe even a couple weeks before that vacation or that trip - my heart would be pounding and I would be excited! And when I think about it, I would do everything I could to prepare for that trip; wanna have a couple extra dollars on the side to buy things: gifts, souvenirs, maybe ice cream on the beach, and all those different things that you do on vacation. And it really just would fill up my mind of all the things that I would be doing and all the fun that we would have as a family. The trip itself would be one of the most exciting parts; whether we would take a car trip down to Florida or get on the airplane and go somewhere, but that trip would, it would intensify the closer and closer as we came to the day to depart and get ready to go on this wonderful trip and go to these, you know, even if it wasn't that far, just places where we can be with our family and have a good time.

“In life we have destinations to get to."

You know, life is not too different. In life we have destinations to get to. You know, whether it's going to be to a place with our families, whether it's a destination of someplace we want to be with God. Life is full of all sorts of trips, or in our case, pilgrimage. And so, in our lives, if we were to stop and we don't have direction, If we were to stop and to think, ‘Where am I going?’ and have no sense of which way to go, especially with the word of God, we are lost and and there's no hope. But as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, when we live by His Word, when we think about it, He gives us direction, He gives us a pathway, He begins a trip - literally a journey begins as we turn to Him and as we look to Him. And what an exciting journey because it is a journey to the place, into the presence of the Lord our God.

He gives us direction, He gives us a pathway. The way to Jesus.

A scripture we've been reading this week that was preached on this past Sunday, we know that it says in Psalm 84 verse 5 “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.” What strength and what joy comes to the person that is on a destination, not just any destination, but on a destination toward knowing the Lord Jesus more than ever before; the greatest place we can ever come. Prior to the Lord Jesus coming, we weren’t able to approach God in such a way. It was impossible to step, you know, due to sin, into His presence; the priest used to have to stand on behalf of the people and there was a distance there. But praise God today that Jesus has come to no longer allow a separation, but for us to turn to Him and for that gap, that gap, that distance between us and the Lord our God has now been demolished, abolished by Jesus who is now our bridge, our mediator to find and to come into the place of the presence of God.

"Have we set our hearts on pilgrimage...upon the Lord, for him to carry us through."

And so, where does our strength come from? Where does our joy come from? Have we set our hearts on pilgrimage? Have we set our hearts on packing up those bags, just like we would do on a great trip, packing our lives and our hearts filled with the Word of the Lord? You know, praying so that we would have the direction. Sitting before God and seeking his guidance so that we know that we will soon arrive to the place that he's called us to be. Each and every day, this is what drives us. Will we set our hearts on pilgrimage? Will we make everything that we're doing, will we gear our hearts, our minds, we let it be what drives us this day? In keeping ourselves pure, in keeping ourselves in the light of God, and in the light of His Word? What an exciting time and what an exciting privilege to be able to set our hearts upon the Lord and for him to carry us through.

So may we walk in the blessings of God. May we walk in his strength and his joy as we set our hearts on a pilgrimage with Him. Amen. Amen.