1 Kings 8:61 Let your heart therefore be perfect with the LORD our God, to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments, as at this day. The prayer of Solomon is followed by a benediction. "He stood and blessed all the congregation," etc. (vers. 54, 55). But though he assumed for the time the priestly function, his utterance was not cast into the usual form of priestly benediction. It was rather an ascription of praise to the God who had fulfilled His promises and given rest to His people, and an exhortation to them that they on their part should follow that path of life in which alone they could hope to realize the further fulfilment of those promises, and enjoy the heritage of blessing that was theirs. Lessons are suggested here that are of force and value for all time. I. THE RELATION BETWEEN TRUE PRAYER AND PERSONAL RIGHTEOUSNESS. Solomon felt that all the impassioned supplications that he had been pouring out before the Lord, and all the sympathetic enthusiasm of the people in these temple services, would be but a mockery unless he and they were prepared to walk with all fidelity in the way of God's commandments. They would soon be leaving the sacred shrine of worship. They could not always be amid the ecstatic and rapturous associations of the temple. They must go back to the matter of fact, prosaic world, to their posts of honour and responsibility, to the privacy of their homes, to their haunts of busy life, to their paths of commerce and of labour. Let them worship there. Let them dwell with God there. Let them embody there, in all the forms of practical virtue, the spirit of devotion that has inspired them amid these hallowed scenes. The "statutes and commandments" of the Lord had reference in great part to the due observance of the ritual of temple worship, but they also claimed, as much then as now, to control the whole spirit and conduct of human life in all its aspects. The relation between prayer and conduct is of a twofold character. They act and react the one on the other. True prayer sheds a hallowing influence over the entire field of a man's daffy activity. When his soul has been face to face with God, absorbed in Divine communion, the inspiration of holy thought and feeling of which he has been conscious will inevitably betray itself in the way in which he acts when he mingles with the things and the beings of earth. The glory of heaven that has shone upon him cannot fail to be reflected in the beauty of his character and deed. A prayerful spirit is an earnest, pure, upright, loving spirit, and such a spirit will govern the whole form and method and aim of a man's life. Prayer solves difficulties, clears one's vision of the path of duty, draws strength from Divine sources for all toil and suffering, raises the tone and level of moral action, fortifies the spirit for any emergency, fills the heart with the peaceful joy of a better world. On the other hand, the conduct of life necessarily affects for good or ill the spirit and efficacy of prayer. If it is needful to pray in order that we may live as Christians, it is equally needful that we should live as Christians in order rightly to pray. The importance of prayer as one chief function of spiritual life doubles the importance of all our actions, because our prayers are so much as our doings are. According as we stand towards the world, with all the social relationships and duties that belong to our place in it, so do we stand before the mercy seat. Think, for instance, how the beneficial effect of family prayer may be nullified by the prevailing spirit of family life. By the discord that may be allowed to reign in it, by its lack of the graces of mutual respect and loving self sacrifice, by the worldliness of its associations, the meanness of its ambitions, the frivolity of its pleasures, the vanity of its cherished societies - how completely may the soul of domestic devotion be destroyed. Let a man be morally reckless in the intercourse and transactions of daily life, and all freedom, "boldness," gladness in prayer is at an end. Anything like loving, confiding converse with the "Father who seeth in secret" is impossible to him. If he cannot look without fear and shame in the face of his fellow man, how shall he dare to look in the face of God? The "heavens become as brass" above his head which no voice of prayer can penetrate. When Saul's heart is thoroughly set in him to do evil it is vain for him to inquire of the Lord. "The Lord answers him no more, neither by Urim, nor by prophet, nor by dream." Let there be a Divine unity and harmony in our life. Let our conduct in all human relationships show us to be what, in our hours of devotion, we seem to ourselves to be. Let it be our ambition every day" to live more nearly as we pray." II. THE RELATION BETWEEN PRACTICAL VIRTUE AND THE STATE OF THE SECRET HEART. A man's heart must be "perfect with the Lord" before he can walk acceptably in the path of His commandments. The old legal economy was not after all so superficial as it seemed to be. God's commandment was "exceeding broad." Literal as the moral laws were, and formal as the ceremonial precepts, they touched at every point the life of the spirit within. "Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man who doeth these things shall live by them" (Romans 10:5), but the righteousness was not in the mere doing. David, the noblest representative of the spirit of the law, well knew that as it is from the fountain of the evil heart that all transgression proceeds, so from the purified heart springs all practical righteousness. "Create in me a clean heart, O God," etc. (Psalm 51:10). The glory of Christianity is that it not only recognizes this principle, but actually brings to bear on the heart the renewing, healing power. It cleanses the fountain of life within. The law could disclose the secret evil, convince of sin, rebuke, restrain, but it could not make men righteous. The gospel does. "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness," etc. (Romans 10:4). "What the law could not do," etc. (Romans 8:8, 4). Keep your heart in habitual contact with the highest sources of spiritual inspiration - in familiar converse with Him who is the fountain of truth and purity and love. Watch over its most secret thoughts and impulses. Guard its sensibilities from the contaminations of the world and the hardening influences of life. Seek to preserve the freshness of its Divine affections and the integrity of its allegiance to Christ, if you would walk as He did, "in loveliness of perfect deeds." III. THE BENEFICIAL INFLUENCE OF A SACRED MEMORY. "As it is this day." Solomon would have that day to dwell in their memories and hallow all their days. Times of special Divine manifestation and highest religious consciousness show us what we may be, what God would have us to be, what is the true level of our spirit's life. - W. Parallel Verses KJV: Let your heart therefore be perfect with the LORD our God, to walk in his statutes, and to keep his commandments, as at this day. |
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