UNITE MY HEART TO FEAR THY NAME

 

EVENING DEVOTION by James Smith

SEPTEMBER 10

 

Psalm 86:11

Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will walk in thy truth:

 unite my heart to fear thy name.

 
To fear God includes faith in his word, love for his character, zeal for his glory, concern to please him, and the fear of offending him.
 
It sometimes signifies to worship him.
 
This embraces reverence, adoration, thanksgiving, and prayer.
 
Worship without the heart is worthless.
 
But how often on worship do we feel our hearts distracted and wandering, and at a distance from God!
 
Well may we pray, “Unite me heart to fear thy name.”
 
That is, calm it, compose it, attract it, fix it, inflame it; that it may throw all its energies into the service.
 
Such a prayer proves that we love the service, desire to honour God in it, feel our own weakness, and seek to obtain grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
 
But do all saints feel their hearts this prone to wander, and find it difficult to engage them in the Lord’s service?
 
They do at times, though some suffer from this much more than others.
 
Yet all occasionally feel some reluctance to duty, or distractions in it; therefore they all pray as David did here, or sign as he did elsewhere,
 
“O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes always.”

 

How oft my heart’s affections yield,

Scattered o’er all the world’s wide field?

My vagrant passions, Lord, reclaim,

Unite them all to fear thy name

 
James Smith