Soul-Arresting Views of Christ JESUS, "The LORD our righteousness!"

"My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise." -Psalm 57:7 [KJV]

My soul! Here is a delightful subject proposed for thine evening meditation, in the fixedness of the heart. The only possible way of really "singing and giving praise to the Lord" with the heart, is when the Lord hath fixed thine heart to the service. Many rush to ordinances, as the unthinking horse rusheth to the battle: not so, my soul, be thy practice. See to it, that He who alone can give a fixedness to the heart, hath fixed thine; for then, when the view of a God in Christ is brought home by the Holy Ghost to thy warmest and most devout affections, then, and not before, will there be a going forth of those affections, awakened and led by the same Almighty Spirit, upon the glorious person of thy Lord, and faith will be in lively exercise, in a way of praise, and love, and obedience, and joy. Then thou wilt sing and give praise "with the spirit, and with the understanding also."  

Sit down now, in the coolness of this sweet summer evening, and wait upon thy Jesus in silence and in meditation before Him, until the Lord hath given thee this fixedness of affection on His person and righteousness; and then thou wilt find a fitness for devotion, and a fitness in devotion, from the sweet influences of God the Holy Ghost. Oh! how blessed is it to retire from every eye but His, Who seeth in secret; and to remember, that while thine eye is looking upon Him, He is ever looking upon thee! Such a thought as this begins to give a fixedness to the heart; for the whole current and stream of the affections are directed, and therefore pour in to this one channel; so that, like a river not divided, nothing of it runs another way. And when the full tide of thine affections is thus tending to the person of Jesus, shall not such a fixedness of thought make thee cry out, as David, "My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise?"  

It is this state of the heart, which makes all the difference between the gracious and the carnal. Both may use closet duties; both may read, yea, study the word; yea, become proficients in the outer understanding of the word; the meditation may furnish the head, but not feed the heart: but it is the gracious soul that enjoys. It is a solemn consideration, how many are employed from year to year, in spiritual things, whose hearts all the while remain carnal. But where there is a fixedness of the heart, by the Spirit of the living God, upon the person, offices, and character of the Lord Jesus Christ, the meditation doth not settle for the mere discharge of a duty, but for the joy of the soul. "O how I love Thy law!" is then the language of the fixed heart; "it is my meditation all the day." My soul, dost thou know these things by heartfelt testimony? Doth God the Holy Ghost shine in upon thee with His light, to give thee sweet views, engaging views, soul-arresting views of Jesus? Are thine eyes, I mean the whole affections of thy soul, fixing themselves on Jesus, as a longing woman fixeth upon the one object of her desire, which nothing beside can satisfy?  

Oh! It is blessed to have this fixedness of mind at all times upon the person of Jesus. For this is to enter into the heart, and to shut to the door, (as Christ expresseth it) by shutting out all thoughts besides, and then looking in every direction for Jesus, and finding Him in all, and upon all. His word, His grace, His secret whispers, His communications, are like so many rich cabinets of jewels, which the soul turns over, and finds Jesus in every one. Oh! Thou dear Lord Jesus! Grant me this happy frame of mind, that I may say, with David, "My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise!" 

-Robert Hawker (1753-1827 A.D.)  


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