THE LORD AND THE HEART
‘Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts.’
In the days of Isaiah, the people of Israel were in imminent peril among many foes, and the prophet would have them to look exclusively to the Lord, and calmly and trustfully await the issue of the crisis as their forefathers did at the Red Sea. Hence he says to them—‘Sanctify the Lord of Hosts Himself, and let Him be your fear and your dread.’ The mantle of the prophet fell upon the shoulders of the Apostle, so the one felt with the other; and as the professors of Christianity were every moment liable to be dragged by their adversaries before the magistrates to answer both for their creed and their conduct, St. Peter, in accord with the sentiment of Isaiah, advises them to imitate the Israel of God by hallowing Him in their hearts.
I. Its meaning.—Not to make the Lord holy; for He is ever holy, absolutely holy, independent of all our thought and feeling toward Him, so that we can neither change His nature nor His character.
(a) He is to be esteemed by us as holy. And that, too, under all circumstances. When providential dispensations are seemingly against us, and countless foes surround us, we must not allow our hearts to indulge disappointment and distrust, nor our tongues to utter complaints of injustice and partiality, but believe that all things are working together for our best interests; as ‘He is too wise to err, and too good to be unkind.’
(b) We are to desire that others should esteem Him as we do. We always wish that due regard be paid to the friend we love, and we are sensitive anent this exactly as we regard him ourselves. So of our Divine Friend: we breathe the prayer Jesus taught us through His disciples—‘Hallowed be Thy name,’ and would accordingly have His very appellation consecrated by every lip in every place.
II. Its observance.
(a) Not by a mere intellectual assent. The proposition that He is holy and worthy of trust is far from being all. Hosts of men think of Him as such: it is an article of their creed; but thousands regard Him as one-sided and cruel. They are sadly wrong in their heart. Not so must it be with us.
(b) Not by a mere formal devotion. This, though having the semblance of reality, may lack the feeling which should ever be associated with it, and indeed form the very life of it. The words of an adulator may be never so meet and eloquent; but what are they worth when false and hollow? The form is there, the spirit is absent. We sanctify the Lord in our hearts when we unfeignedly ascribe holiness to Him in all our praises and all our prayers.
(c) This devout homage must be rendered with befitting emotion. Isaiah specifies ‘dread’ and ‘fear’; St. Peter speaks of ‘meekness and fear.’ Not the overwhelming dread felt by the desert people when Sinai rocked with thunder and burned with fire, but the loving fear which he has who finds his chief happiness on earth in doing the will of his Father in heaven. This fear renders all other impossible; for love never dreads a friend, but delights in the mere thought of him. Fearing God, we have really nothing else to fear (Daniel 3:16-18; Romans 8:31).