“And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God” 

Revelation 21:3.

Christian writer Gary Henry made an important observation regarding the blessing we receive from the Lord God, the greatest giver. “Whatever secondary blessings flow from God, we ought to seek none of these as diligently as we seek God Himself.” 

We need to seek God primarily for his sake, because he is our God and we desire to give ourselves to him.

Selfishness and manipulation of others for self are out of character for Christians. Selfishness is always self-defeating. If we're concerned only with God’s myriad of gifts, we'll miss the greatest gift of all. English church leader E. B. Pusey, who lived in England from1800 to 1882, wrote that “God's chief gift to those who seek him is himself.” A helpful concept is tha God is both giver and gift. 

Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water” (John 4:10).

Exactly what is the living water only God can give? Paul would later write that "the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). Jesus had gone to the heart of the matter about eternal life on the night he was betrayed when he prayed: "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" (John 17:3). God gives us life by giving us himself. 

There are other blessings which flow from a right relationship with God, but that relationship itself is God's greatest gift to his creation. If we "have God and his son, we have the highest thing to which we can aspire: "He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son" (2 John 9).

We can hardly grasp the reality of a God of such wonderful mercy and grace. It takes a hard heart not to be moved by Jesus' simple words: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him" (John 14:23). 

This seems much too good to be true. Only God could make it true. English mystic and writer Julian of Norwich (1342 – 1416) penned a brief prayer to the God of all grace.

"God, of your goodness, give me yourself for you are sufficient for me.

I cannot properly ask anything less, to be worthy of you. If I were to ask less,

I should always be in want. In you alone do I have all."

As we pray each day, we should ask God to help us remember that we have nothing, and can have nothing, more valuable to us that him.