Psalm 119:32–36, 45 (NKJV) — I will run the course of Your commandments, For You shall enlarge my heart. Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes, And I shall keep it to the end. Give me understanding, and I shall keep Your law; Indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart. Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, For I delight in it. Incline my heart to Your testimonies, And not to covetousness… And I will walk at liberty, For I seek Your precepts.
There was a sweet providential topic running through my devotions this week - the empowering and transforming work of God's Spirit in the believer's heart. That was the major theme in chapters eleven and twelve of The Bruised Reed as well as my Scripture reading.
As believers, we are being conformed to the image of Christ. Our affections, our will, what we love, and what we hate are being transformed. Or, to use the language of the Psalmist, our hearts are being enlarged to understand, love, and delight in the things of God. To walk in the ways of the Lord is true freedom, liberty, and joy. By contrast, alienation from God is to be in bondage to a smallness of heart; a heart that is foolish, blind, hard, and darkened (Rom 1:21, Eph 4:18).
For the believer, it is beyond comforting to know that we are not set adrift on a vast ocean left to fend for ourselves. God is working in us both to will and to do His good pleasure (Phil 2:13). Moreover, we have actually been predestined to be conformed into the image of Christ (Rom 8:29). This is grace beyond measure and riches untold!
So, with all of that said, here are some of my highlighted passages from The Bruised Reed this week along with two bonus quotes from Spurgeon on the same themes of liberty and transformation.
…the gracious frame of holiness set up in our hearts by the Spirit of Christ shall go forward until all contrary power is subdued. The spirit of judgment will be a spirit of burning (Isa. 4:4) to consume whatever opposed corruption eats into the soul like rust.[1]
…in spiritual life, it is most necessary that the Spirit should alter the taste of the soul so that it might savor the things of the Spirit so deeply that all other things should be out of relish.[2]
it is the first thing that we desire when we pray, 'Thy kingdom come', that Christ would come and rule in our hearts. The kingdom of Christ in his ordinances serves but to bring Christ home into his own place, our hearts.[3]
His subjects are voluntaries. The constraint that he lays upon his subjects is that of love. He draws us sweetly with the cords of love. Yet remember also that he draws us strongly by a Spirit of power, for it is not sufficient that we have motives and encouragements to love and obey Christ from that love of his, whereby he gave himself for us to justify us; but Christ's Spirit must likewise subdue our hearts, and sanctify them to love him, without which all motives would be ineffectual.[4]
Now when he clearly reveals what is good in particular, we are attracted to it; and when he shows us convincingly what is evil we abhor it as freely as we embraced it before.[5]
And, therefore Christ brings about all that is good in the soul through judgment, and that so sweetly that many, by a dangerous error, think that that good which is in them and issues from them is from themselves, and not from the powerful work of grace.[6]
Christ sets up his throne in the very heart and alters its direction, so making his subjects good, together with teaching them to be good. Other princes can make good laws, but they cannot write them in their people's hearts (Jer. 31:33). This is Christ's prerogative: he infuses into his subjects his own Spirit.[7]
The knowledge which we have of him from himself is a transforming knowledge (2 Cor. 3:18). The same Spirit who enlightens the mind inspires gracious inclinations into the will and affections and infuses strength into the whole man.[8]
When the judgment of Christ is set up in our judgments, and thence, by the Spirit of Christ, brought into our hearts, then it is in its proper place and throne.[9]
Without Christ's Spirit the soul is in confusion, without beauty and form, as all things were in the chaos before the creation. The whole soul is out of joint till it be set right again by him whose office is to `restore all things'.[10]
Bonus Spurgeon:
“I will run the way of thy commandments.” With energy, promptitude, and zeal he would perform the will of God, but he needed more life and liberty from the hand of God. “When thou shalt enlarge my heart.” Yes, the heart is the master; the feet soon run when the heart is free and energetic. Let the affections be aroused and eagerly set on divine things, and our actions will be full of force, swiftness, and delight. God must work in us first, and then we shall will and do according to his good pleasure. He must change the heart, unite the heart, encourage the heart, strengthen the heart, and enlarge the heart, and then the course of the life will be gracious, sincere, happy, and earnest; so that from our lowest up to our highest state in grace we must attribute all to the free favour of our God. We must run; for grace is not an overwhelming force which compels unwilling minds to move contrary to their will: our running is the spontaneous leaping forward of a mind which has been set free by the hand of God, and delights to show its freedom by its bounding speed.[11]
Is not this the way to the highest form of liberty,—to be always labouring to know the mind of God and to be conformed to it? Those who keep the law are sure to seek it, and bestir themselves to keep it more and more.[12]
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[1] The Bruised Reed (pp. 75-76). Kindle Edition.
[2] The Bruised Reed (p. 76). Kindle Edition.
[3] The Bruised Reed (pp. 76-77). Kindle Edition.
[4] The Bruised Reed (pp. 78-79). Kindle Edition.
[5] The Bruised Reed (p. 83). Kindle Edition.
[6] The Bruised Reed (p. 83). Kindle Edition.
[7] The Bruised Reed (p. 84). Kindle Edition.
[8] The Bruised Reed (p. 84). Kindle Edition.
[9] The Bruised Reed (pp. 85-86). Kindle Edition.
[10] The Bruised Reed (p. 86). Kindle Edition.
[11] Spurgeon, C. H. (n.d.). The treasury of David: Psalms 111-119 (Vol. 5, pp. 192–193). London; Edinburgh; New York: Marshall Brothers.
[12] Spurgeon, C. H. (n.d.). The treasury of David: Psalms 111-119 (Vol. 5, p. 229). London; Edinburgh; New York: Marshall Brothers.
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