“…prepare their heart unto thee,” (1Chron. 29:18).
Before you come into the sanctuary for worship, or into your closet for prayer, how do you prepare your heart?
How are the hearts of the saints prepared to worship? Is our diligence greater to put our hearts in an adoring posture, than our bodies in a decent garb? Or are we content to have a muddy heart, so we may have a dressed carcass? To have a spirit like a cage of unclean birds, while we wipe the filth from the outside of the platter, is no better than a pharisaical devotion, and deserves no better a name than that of a whited sepulcher.
Stephen Charnock said, “Do we take opportunities to excite and quicken our spirits to the performance, and cry aloud with David, “Awake, awake, my glory!” Are not our hearts asleep when Christ knocks? When we hear the voice of God, “Seek my face;” do we answer him with warm resolutions, “Thy face, Lord, we will seek?” (Psalm 27:8). Do we comply with spiritual motions, and strike whilst the iron is hot?”
How do you strike the iron while it is hot? What preparations do you make for worshipping and adoring God? Coming into God’s presence is a holy thing. It is a sanctifying thing, so long as one is prepared. Can a man enter the boxing ring without preparation to fight the heavyweight champion? There are a great deal of steps to be made in order to attain such a high level of skill. What is your level of skill, and how have you improved it in your own devotional time?
Contemplation:
Help me, Lord Jesus, to improve all advantages to advance your grand end and purpose. Help me to labor to grow better by blessings and crosses, and to make a sanctified use of all things you give me in your providence. If I decay in my first love, or in some other grace, yet another grace may grow and increase, such as humility, my brokenheartedness, etc. Sometimes they do not seem to grow in the branches when they may grow at the root. When I examine myself and make a study of grace in my heart, sometimes I find other graces have enlarged, but not all of them, and not all the time. Yet I know, after a hard winter there usually follows a glorious spring. I know that a spark from heaven, though kindled under green wood that sobs and smokes, will consume my heart and passion at last. Help me in the right manner of growth; to grow less in my own eyes, and greater to understand and adore you. Make me greater in religion this week, than I was the week before. Caused my heart to be prepared for worship, devotions and living before your face today, and for all time.
