dear friends, if we would
have a home for our hearts, let us pass into that sweet, calm,
inexpugnable fortress provided for us in the love of God and the
patience of Christ.

II. Now notice, secondly, the Guide of the heart to its home.

'The Lord direct you.' I have already explained that we have here a
distinct address to Jesus Christ as divine, and the hearer of prayer.
The Apostle evidently expects a present, personal influence from Christ
to be exerted upon men's hearts. And this is the point to which I desire
to draw your attention in a word or two. We are far too oblivious of the
present influence of Jesus Christ, by His Spirit, upon the hearts of men
that trust Him. We have very imperfectly apprehended our privileges as
Christians if our faith do not expect, and if our experience have not
realised, the inward guidance of Christ moment by moment in our daily
lives. I believe that much of the present feebleness of the Christian
life amongst its professors is to be traced to the fact that their
thoughts about Jesus Christ are predominantly thoughts of what He did
nineteen centuries ago, and that the proportion of faith is not observed
in their perspective of His work, and that they do not sufficiently
realise that to-day, here, in you and me, if we have faith in Him, He
is verily and really putting forth His power.

Paul's prayer is but an echo of Christ's promise. The Master said, 'He
shall guide you into all truth.' The servant prays, 'The Lord direct
your hearts into the love of God.' And if we rightly know the whole
blessedness that is ours in the gift of Jesus Christ, we shall recognise
His present guidance as a reality in our lives.

That guidance is given to us mainly by the Divine Spirit laying upon our
hearts the great facts which evoke our answering love to God. 'We love
Him because He first loved us'; and the way by which Jesus directs our
hearts into the love of God is mainly by shedding abroad God's love to
us in our spirits by the Holy Spirit which is given to us.

But, besides that, all these movements in our hearts so often neglected,
so often resisted, by which we are impelled to a holier life, to a
deeper love, to a more unworldly consecration--all these, rightly
understood, are Christ's directions. He leads us, though often we know
not the hand that guides; and every Christian may be sure of this--and
he is sinful if he does not live up to the height of his
privileges--that the ancient promi