59. Wisdom's Request to Her Son.

My son, give me thine heart. - Proverbs 23:26. It is wisdom that here speaks. Wisdom is but another name for God, or, better still, for the Lord Jesus, who is incarnate wisdom. The request is for the heart, the affections, the center of our being. "Give me thine heart" is the first, the daily, the chief, the ultimate demand of the good Spirit.

I. LOVE PROMPTS THIS REQUEST OF WISDOM.

1. Only love will thus seek love. What cares indifference for the love of others? If it can serve its turn by their hands, their hearts may go where they choose.

2. Only for love would wisdom seek the hearts of such poor things as we are. What service can we render to him whom angels adore? What matters our love or hate to him?

3. Yet wisdom gains a son when the heart is given to it; for no one is a true son who does not love. "He that loveth is born of God."

4. If a son already, God's love bids us become yet more wise by a more complete yielding of the heart to God, to Christ, to wisdom. We cannot push this precept too far.

II. WISDOM PERSUADES US TO OBEY THIS LOVING REQUEST.

It is for our lasting good to love the Lord and his wisdom.

1. Evil lovers will seek us, and our hearts will be given to one or other. To our ruin or our ennobling the choice will be. He who has the heart has the man.

2. It is well to be engaged with the highest love that we may overcome the lower. God's servant cannot be Satan's slave.

3. It will please God for us to love him; a father is charmed with the love of his little child. What an honor, a heritage, a heaven to be allowed to love the Lord!

4. Nothing else can please him. Whatever we do without our hearts will grieve him; it will be an empty formality. Fish were never offered to God, for they could not come to the altar alive. The heathen reckoned it to be a fatal omen when the heart of the victim was not sound.

5. He deserves our heart, for he made it, he keeps it beating, he cheers it, he bought it, he prepares it for heaven; he gives heart for heart — his own love for ours.

6. There is no getting wisdom without giving the heart to it. God will not give himself to the heartless. Nothing can be done well unless the heart is thrown into it.

III. LOVE WOULD HAVE US OBEY THE REQUEST WISELY.

· At once-give God your heart. Delay is wicked and injurious.

· Freely-give God your heart; it cannot be done else. Force cannot compel love; the gift must be spontaneous.

· Altogether give God your heart. Half a heart is no heart. A divided heart is dead. "God is not the God of the dead."

· Once for all give him your heart, and let it remain in his keeping: for ever.

o Where is your heart now?

o What state is it in? Is it not cold, worldly, restless?

o Come and believe in Jesus, that you may receive power to become a son of God, and serve him with loving heart.