In the last devotional, we began the season of duty, which is about how to keep our hearts fixed on God when we do our duty for Him, such as in prayer, Bible reading, family worship, singing to Him, and the like. Whatever our duty to Him, we, as Christians, are responsible to, as we saw last time, (1) set aside specific time for our duties to God, ridding ourselves of distraction and proper meditation (diligent and careful thinking on His teaching and ways) on Him; (2) guard our bodily senses from distraction; and (3) beg God to help us mortify all distracting thoughts from Him, working to do so, recognizing that this is a battle for our hearts. We will look at three more helps in this season. This is help four:
4. If you would keep your heart from vain excursions when engaged in duties, realize to yourself, by faith, the holy and awesome presence of God. If the presence of a grave man would compose you to seriousness, how much more should the presence of a holy God? Do you think that you would dare to be jolly and light if you realized the presence and inspection of the Divine Being? Remember where you are when engaged in religious duty, and act as if you believed in the omniscience of God. “All things are naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” Realize his infinite holiness, his purity, his spirituality.
Strive to obtain such apprehensions of the greatness of God as shall suitably affect your heart: and remember his jealousy over his worship. “This is that the Lord spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified.” “A man that is praying,” says Bernard, “should behave himself as if he were entering into the court of heaven, where he sees the Lord upon his throne, surrounded with ten thousand of his angels and saints ministering unto him.”—When you come from an exercise in which your heart has been wandering and listless, what can you say? Suppose all the vanities and impertinences which have passed through your mind during a devotional exercise were written down and interlined with your petitions, could you have the face to present them to God? Should your tongue utter all the thoughts of your heart when attending the worship of God. would not men abhor you? Yet your thoughts are perfectly known to God. O think upon this scripture: “God is greatly to be feared in the assemblies of his saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are round about him.” Why did the Lord descend in thunderings and lightnings and dark clouds upon Sinai? why did the mountains smoke under him, the people quake and tremble round about him, Moses himself not excepted? but to teach the people this great truth: “Let us have grace, whereby we may serve Him acceptably, with reverence and godly fear; for our God is a consuming fire.” Such apprehensions of the character and presence of God will quickly reduce a heart inclined to vanity to a more serious frame.
Entering upon our duties to God is no trivial or small thing. In fact, there is no greater privilege than entering into His presence. To treat this time as common is an affront to God, treating Him as if He were common Himself. Rather, “hallowed be thy name” (meaning, “great, holy, majestic, and worthy to be praised is your name”) is how we are to treat God: with the utmost reverence and care. In the West, we have become accustomed to treating nearly everything as common, as if everything was meant to be informal (even church!). Yet, the things of God require a reverence that matches His majesty and greatness. Western culture collectively sins when it forgets to pay great heed to His name, when it uses His name flippantly, when they complain (which is actually complaining against His providence), and when our Christian duties are treated as common as doing the dishes. To help cultivate proper reverence and awe of God, we must first know who God is. This requires meditation on His attributes, character, and holiness. When we read a text of Scripture, rather than asking, what does this text say of me, ask, “What does this text say of God and His character?” You can only know yourself after you have come to know God! So, in your times of duty, always seek to learn about who God is and grow in your comprehension of who He is. This will help you to keep your heart focused on Him; after all, who can keep their heart fixed on someone they do not know?
5. Maintain a prayerful frame of heart in the intervals of duty. What reason can be assigned why our hearts are so dull, so careless, so wandering, when we hear or pray, but that there have been long intermissions in our communion with God? If that divine unction, that spiritual fervor, and those holy impressions, which we obtain from God while engaged in the performance of one duty, were preserved to enliven and engage us in the performance of another, they would be of incalculable service to keep our hearts serious and devout. For this purpose, frequent prayer between stated and solemn duties are of most excellent use: they not only preserve the mind in a composed and pious frame, but they connect one stated duty, as it were, with another, and keep the attention of the soul alive to all its interests and obligations.
Praying often and not just at set times helps us to stay focused on God. When we learn to revere and keep our hearts focused on God during our regular times of duty, this will also help frequent prayers throughout the day to also be focused on Him. Think of it this way: if you love a person, do you only speak infrequently with them, or often? You speak often! And we have no limitations to how much we can pray to God. This helps to extend our sense of God’s holiness to the rest of the day.
6. If you would have the distraction of your thoughts prevented, endeavor to raise your affections to God, and to engage them warmly in your duty. When the soul is intent upon any work, it gathers in its strength and bends all its thoughts to that work; and when it is deeply affected, it will pursue its object with intenseness, the affections will gain an ascendancy over the thoughts and guide them. But deadness causes distraction, and distraction increases deadness. Could you but regard your duties as the medium in which you might walk in communion with God in which your soul might be filled with those ravishing and matchless delights which his presence affords, you might have no inclination to neglect them. But if you would prevent the recurrence of distracting thoughts, if you would find your happiness in the performance of duty, you must not only be careful that you engage in what is your duty, but labor with patient and persevering exertion to interest your feelings in it. Why is your heart so inconstant, especially in secret duties; why are you ready to be gone, almost as soon as you are come into the presence of God, but because your affections are not engaged?
For us to raise our affections to God is for us to raise our will to Him: our hearts. This is not about conjuring certain emotions, but about disciplining ourselves to orient our entire selves to God, which leads to our times of duty being worshipful to God and effective in bringing about holiness and glory to Him. The opposite of this is doing a duty because it is a duty. God does not desire external conformity, but internal. Yet, when our hearts are set on God, our whole self follows and delights in Him. We come to delight in who God is, which is the opposite of merely pursuing to feel a certain way (which is self-serving). Know God, set your heart on Him, and your duties will become more and more a delight. Yet, God is also honoured when we set our hearts on Him even when our feelings do not seem to follow suite. He looks at our heart, not the state of our emotions. Orientate yourself after Him, and you will glorify Him.
Next time we will look at the last four helps for this season of duty.