We are needy enough, perhaps, to know what prayer is; our needs have been so_ richly met that we can gladly join in thanksgiving for benefits received; but, though worship does not exclude the latter, vet in its fullest, highest sense, it goes far beyond it.
Christian worship is the adoring homage of the soul in presence of God fully revealed. Our frames, feelings, trials, experiences, or service have no place here. We may have abundant cause to pray about all these; but when we worship, ourselves and our circumstances are forgotten as we admire and adore the deep and manifold perfections of God, revealed as the Father in Christ.
Have we not often to mourn over the poverty of worship in our own souls, and in the assemblies? Is there not a cause? I believe the secret to be that in spite of all our high talk and much intelligence, we have but little real appreciation of Christ.
There is wonderful force, to my soul, in the close connection between “worshiping God in the spirit” and “rejoicing in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:3). If we ourselves were actually in the enjoyment of Christ; if our hearts were finding continual delight in Himself and what He has done; not merely resting on Him and thus getting relief about the past and deliverance from all fear of the future (alas! many never seem to get beyond this), but rejoicing in Him in all His excellence and perfections, our hearts would be like censers continually giving out His fragrance in true spiritual worship.
I put the question solemnly to my own heart, and I put it to yours – Are you enjoying Christ?
I have not a doubt, thank God, of your salvation or of my own, and this very assurance enables us to welcome everything that produces exercise in our hearts before God. Remember, that intelligence is not enjoyment. Has it not been manifest again and again that where there has been the greatest amount of intellectual acquaintance with the Word, there has been little enjoyment of God’s favor in the soul?
Are you rejoicing in Christ as the Sin Offering? Is your heart occupied with thoughts of that blessed spotless Victim who has been in the awful place of distance, and death, and judgment for you and your sins? Do you meditate with adoring wonder on that cry of unparalleled anguish – “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me.” All the horrors of your place of distance from God were felt by His holy soul as none beside could ever feel them, during the three hours of His substitutionary sufferings on the cross. When you were without strength and ungodly He died for you. Yes, sinner as you were, He died for you! He gave Himself for your sins – ah! those dark, crimson, soul-defiling, and God-dishonoring sins and died for them according to the Scriptures, bearing them in His own body on the tree, and suffering for them every one. Jehovah’s sword of judgment awoke from its sheath of mercy when the Man who was His Fellow took your place upon the cross. Judgment without mercy, wrath without relief were His portion, and He has exhausted the flame; it has burnt itself out upon Him: and you are forgiven, cleansed, justified, redeemed, purged in your conscience, and made nigh by His blood. Are you enjoying it?
(To, be continued).