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###### Seek to Delight in Heavenly Things

{Since the Heavenly Trade Is the Best Trade…

Exhortation and Counsel to Professors of Christianity

Have and Keep Up a Heavenly Spirit

Seek to Delight in Heavenly Things}

Another property of a heavenly spirit is this: it is a spirit that not only sees heavenly things, but delights in them; it tastes a sweetness in divine things. There is nothing in all the world that so pleases a spiritual mind as spiritual things. So much is included in that word, “for those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit” (Romans 8:5 ESV). That is, believers delight in and relish the things of the Spirit. [When Jesus rebuked Peter,] He said that Peter set his mind on the things of man, not God (Matthew 16:23).549 This includes the emotions and desires as well as the understanding. A heavenly spirit takes delight in heavenly things; it actively impels the soul to seek God and eternal things. And this is your work also: to get and maintain a delight in God and divine things, to cherish panting after heavenly things, and to strengthen your spiritual senses by exercising them, so that by this means your soul may always be quick to see, hear, taste, smell, and feel the joys and pleasures that are in things above. By this means, Christianity will be desirable, Christ’s yoke easy, His ways pleasant, and His commands not grievous. This is one of the most difficult disciplines of Christianity: to maintain the inward source and generator of holy actions [the heart] pure and lively. It is far easier to perform any external duty than to keep the heart in a healthy, active constitution for God. The heart is apt to languish and grow out of order every moment if not kept and maintained by continued supplies from above. “Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23 NKJV).

549“But He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s’” (Matthew 16:23 NASB).

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