God hath, as it were, made Himself over to believers. Job doth not say, God will give or bestow salvation upon me, but he saith, " He shall be my salvation."
It is God Himself who is the salvation and the portion of His people. They would not care much for salvation if God were not their salvation. It more pleaseth the saints that they enjoy God than that they enjoy salvation. False and carnal spirits will express a great deal of desire after salvation. O, they like salvation, heaven, and glory very well but they never express any longing desire after God and Jesus Christ. They love salvation, but they care not for a Savior. Now that which faith pitcheth most upon is God Himself. He shall be my salvation: let me have Him, and there is salvation enough. He is my life, He is my comfort, He is my riches, He is my honor, and He is my all.
Thus David's heart acted immediately upon God. (Psa. 18:1, 21<<To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who spake unto the Lord the words of this song in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul: And he said,>> I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. 2The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. (Psalm 18:1‑2)) It pleaseth holy David more that God was his strength than that God gave Him strength-that God was his Deliverer than that he was delivered-that God was his fortress, his buckler, his horn, his high tower, than that He gave him the effect of all these. It pleased David, and it pleases all the saints more, that God is their salvation (whether temporal or eternal) than that He saves them. The saints look more at God than at all that is God's.
They say, We desire not Thine, but Thee; or, Nothing of Thine like Thee. "Whom have I in heaven but thee?" saith David again (Psa. 73:2525Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. (Psalm 73:25)). What are saints, what are angels, to a soul without God? 'Tis true of things as well as of persons. What have we in heaven but God? What is joy without God; what is glory without God; what is all the furniture and riches, all delicates, yea, and all the diadems of heaven, without the God of heaven?
If God should say to the saints, " Here is heaven, take it amongst you, but I will withdraw myself," how would they weep over heaven itself, and make it a Bacca—a valley of tears indeed! Heaven is not heaven unless we enjoy God. 'Tis the presence of God which makes heaven. Glory is but our nearest being unto God (our being nearest to God). As Mephibosheth replied when David told him (2 Sam. 19), "I have said, thou and Ziba divide the land:" " Let him take all, forasmuch as my lord the king is come again in peace to his own house," where I may enjoy him. So if God should say to the saints, "Take heaven amongst you," and withdraw Himself, they would soon say, Nay; let the world take heaven if they will, let them take glory if they will; if we may not have Thee in heaven, heaven would be but an earth, or rather but a hell to us." That which saints rejoice in is that they may be in the presence of God-that they may sit at His table and eat bread with Him-that is, that they may be near Him constantly, which was Mephibosheth's privilege with David. That's the things say they, which they desire, and which their souls thirst after-that's the wine they would drink.
"My soul (saith David) thirsteth for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God?" He spake this in the greatness and heat of his zeal to enjoy God in the ordinances of His public worship. How much more was his soul on fire to enjoy God when he should be above ordinances! The usual saying of Christians is, "Come let us go to prayer," or "Let us go to church." We should rather say, "Come let us go to God."
We should prize duties no farther than as we obey and enjoy God in doing them. Nor should we prize heaven itself farther than as we shall have there a more full and perfect enjoyment of God. Salvation itself were no salvation without the God of salvation. " He also shall be my salvation."
(From an Odd Book, 1652.)