My Summer with Psalm 119 #3

As a few of you know, I love, love, LOVE Psalm 119. I thought it would be great to spend a summer focusing on that psalm and what others have had to say about it. I'll begin with Thomas Manton's Exposition of Psalm 119. It may take all summer to read all 158 sermons. But they're so GOOD, so RICH, I think it will be worth it.

Sermon three covers Psalm 119:2. 

This is the second sermon by Thomas Manton which covers the second verse. It's a rich verse, and it deserves more attention. Essentially, this time we focus exclusively on SEEKING God. 

I think John Piper would approve of this sermon very much!!! The ideas in this sermon may seem a bit radical, a bit extreme to modern ears. But certainly not to John Piper! He has been advocating the whole DELIGHT in God concept for decades. 

I invite you to read and reread these quotes slowly, to really stop and consider what it means to seek God. Do you agree with Manton?!  

• We do not live merely to live; but for this end were we sent into the world, to seek God.
• God is the cause of all things, and nature cannot be satisfied without him.
• We were made for God, and can never enjoy satisfaction until we come to enjoy him;
• We are seeking that for which we were created, when we seek and inquire after God.
• The chiefest good should be sought after with the chiefest care, and chiefest love, and chiefest delight; nothing should be so precious to us as God.
• It is the greatest baseness that can be, that anything should take up our time, our thoughts, and content us more than God.
• If anything be sought from God above God, more than God, and not for God, it is but a brutish cry.
• It is our benefit to seek God. It is no benefit to God if we do not seek him. The Lord hath no less, though we have less. He that hides himself from the sun, doth not impair the light. We derogate nothing from God if we do not seek him. He needed not the creature: he had happiness enough in himself; but we hide ourselves from our own happiness and our own peace.
• Every hour we need his direction, protection, strength; and we are in danger to lose him, if we do not continue the search.
• Wrestle through discouragements; though former endeavours have been in vain, yet still we should continue seeking after God.
• It is not enough to own Christ to be the true Messiah, but we must embrace him, put our whole trust in him.
• To seek God with the whole heart, is to seek him with the highest elevation of our hearts. The whole heart must be carried out to God, and to other things for God’s sake.
• He that gives but part to God doth indeed give nothing.
• The devil keeps an interest as long as one lust remains unmortified, and one corner of the soul is kept for him.
• We were not mangled in our creation; God, that made the whole, must have the whole. He preserves the whole. Christ hath bought the whole:
• All that you have is to be glorified in the day of Christ; all that you are and have must be given to him—whole spirit, soul, and body. Let us not deprive him of any part.

© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible