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Our supreme deity?
From Edward Griffin's "An Exhortation to Serve the Lord"
'If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father
and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters,
yes, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.'
None are true disciples but those who love Christ supremely.
They esteem God above every other object.
They consider his glory as their highest interest,
and communion with him as their supreme happiness.
It is their greatest grief that their treacherous hearts
are so prone to wander from God.
Their most fervent desires pant after him.
And when in a favored hour they find 'him whom their
soul loves,' they hold him fast and will not let him go.
There is no true love to God which is not habitually supreme.
Supreme love to God will certainly produce self denial for his sake.
It will habitually avoid every thing which he has forbidden,
and obey, not a part, but all his commands.
Supreme love will seek communion with its object
more than any worldly pleasure.
It will pant after him and after greater conformity to him;
it will seek his glory as the highest interest;
it will count him the most desirable portion;
it will delight in thinking of him more than in any worldly thoughts;
it will delight in prayer,
it will renounce the world and idols and cultivate a heavenly mind.
Unless we have that which will produce all these effects,
we have no supreme love to God;
and if we have no supreme love, we have no love at all;
and if we have no love, as there is no neutral state,
we are his enemies. 'He who is not with me is against me..."
Hence it is that so many people who attend public worship
and lead regular lives, are unmindful of God from day to day,
neglect prayer, put eternal things out of view,
and lose themselves in the eager pursuit of the world.
They must be conscious, if they will but reflect,
that 'the world' engages more of their care than God or their souls,
and is of course their supreme deity.
They would rather be employed in reading an amusing story
than in searching the Scriptures.
Surely such people do not love God.
Such minds could not be happy in heaven if admitted there.
They must undergo a radical change or certainly
they can find no happiness beyond the grave.
Ah Lord God, how many such are to be found among us,
among the dearest friends of our hearts.
It is distressing to look through our congregations and see
how men neglect God; how they live without him in the world,
live as though there were no God.
Is there no remedy for our lost 'professing' brethren?
Will nothing awaken them to their duty and danger?
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