A 350+ yr. old sermon on Matthew 6:33 by the Rev. Hugh Binning reeeeaaaallllyyy ministered to my soul...wish I could post the whole thing! Savor and enjoy:
Are ye then seekers of the kingdom? If ye did but examine one day how it is spent, ye might pass a judgment upon your whole life. Do ye seek that first which is fewest times in your thoughts, and least in your affections, and hath least of your time bestowed on it? Alas, do not flatter yourselves... If Christianity take not up a man, he hath not the thing, but the name.
This is that which I would have engraven on all our hearts, that there is a necessity of making Christianity our calling and trade, our business and employment, else we must renounce it. It will take our whole man, our whole time, not spare hours, and by thoughts... This imports that those who make not religion their great comprehensive study, do neither know eternity, nor see into it. Oh, how may this word strike into the hearts of many Christians, and pierce as a sword!
All ye toil about, what is it? Children's fancies. Such houses and kingdoms as they build in the sand. Why spend ye your time and labour upon earthly things that are at an end? Here is a kingdom worthy of all men's thoughts, and affections, and time. The diligent shall have it. Gird up the loins of your mind, and seek it as the one thing needful. Many of you desire this kingdom, but alas! these are sluggard's wishes, ye have fainting desires after it. Your desires consume and waste you. But ye put not forth your hand, and so ye have nothing.
Do ye see any growing Christian, but he that is much in the exercise of godliness, and very honest in it? See ye any fat souls, but diligent souls? Our barrenness and leanness hath negligence written upon it. Do ye not wonder that we are not fat and flourishing, as palms and cedars in the courts of our God?... Therefore Christians, let this be your name, Seekers, but seekers of what? Not of any new religion, but of the good old kingdom of God, proponed to us in the gospel. Your seeking will proclaim your estimation of what ye seek. (emphasis added) It will be written on it, what your desires are... Diligence speaks affection, and affection principles (excites--Ed.) diligence... When ye have found all, ye must seek. Ye do but find in part, because the kingdom of God is but coming in the glory and perfection of it. Nay, I believe the more ye find, the more ye will seek, because tasting what this kingdom is, can best engage the affection and resolution after it.
Christians, remember your name. When you have attained all, still seek more. For there is more to be found here than ye have yet found...Desires and diligence are the vital sap of a Christian. Enlarge once your desires as the grave, that never says I have enough. And ye have good warrant so to do, because that which ye are allowed to desire is without bounds and measure... Let your diligence come up to desires, and at length ye shall be what ye would be, ye shall find what ye sought (The works of the Rev. Hugh Binning, Volume 2, pp. 587-90, BiblioBazaar, 2008).
As the psalmist says, it is in God's presence that there is fullness of joy. Why then do we so often stray or lose our passion for God? The flesh is ever warring against our souls; let us be on the offensive as befitting a good soldier in wartime.
May the Lord be gracious to us and grant us a desire for Him that eclipses our taste for anything else.
1 comments:
I read in Psalm 145 today that "the LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth."
A lot of times I think we forget the qualifying statement and just get mad that He doesn't respond to our half- (quarter-? sixteenth-?) hearted cries for help. It's an all-heart-soul-mind-strength-or-nothing deal. Like you said, we absolutely, positively must become and remain never-satisfied seekers of the one true God.
And yet He is near, and He does answer, and He gives the grace. ♥♥♥!
"To have found You and still be looking for You--it's the soul's paradox of love. You fill my cup; I lift it up for more. I won't stop now that I'm free. I'll be chasing You like You chase me!"
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