It is wisdom that here speaks. Wisdom is but another name for God, or, better still, for the Lord Jesus, who is incarnate wisdom. The request is for the heart, the affections, the center of our being. "Give me thine heart" is the first, the daily, the chief, the ultimate demand of the good Spirit.

1. Only love will thus seek love. What cares indifference for the love of others? If it can serve its turn by their hands, their hearts may go where they choose.

2. Only for love would wisdom seek the hearts of such poor things as we are. What service can we render to him whom angels adore? What matters our love or hate to him?

4. If a son already, God's love bids us become yet more wise by a more complete yielding of the heart to God, to Christ, to wisdom. We cannot push this precept too far.

1. Evil lovers will seek us, and our hearts will be given to one or other. To our ruin or our ennobling the choice will be. He who has the heart has the man.

2. It is well to be engaged with the highest love that we may overcome the lower. God's servant cannot be Satan's slave.

3. It will please God for us to love him; a father is charmed with the love of his little child. What an honor, a heritage, a heaven to be allowed to love the Lord!

4. Nothing else can please him. Whatever we do without our hearts will grieve him; it will be an empty formality. Fish were never offered to God, for they could not come to the altar alive. The heathen reckoned it to be a fatal omen when the heart of the victim was not sound.

5. He deserves our heart, for he made it, he keeps it beating, he cheers it, he bought it, he prepares it for heaven; he gives heart for heart — his own love for ours.

6. There is no getting wisdom without giving the heart to it. God will not give himself to the heartless. Nothing can be done well unless the heart is thrown into it.

• At once-give God your heart. Delay is wicked and injurious.


• Freely-give God your heart; it cannot be done else. Force cannot compel love; the gift must be spontaneous.


• Altogether give God your heart. Half a heart is no heart. A divided heart is dead. "God is not the God of the dead."


• Once for all give him your heart, and let it remain in his keeping: for ever.
  
  • Where is your heart now?
  
  
  • What state is it in? Is it not cold, worldly, restless?
  
  
  • Come and believe in Jesus, that you may receive power to become a son of God, and serve him with loving heart.

Of all the suitors which come unto you, it seems there is none which hath any title to claim the heart but God, who challengeth it of you, calling you by the name of a son (Mai. 1:6), as if he should say, Thou shalt give it to thy Father, which gave it to thee. Art thou my son? My sons give me their hearts, and by this they know that I am their Father, if I dwell in their hearts, for the heart is the temple of God (1 Cor. 6:16); therefore, if thou be his son, thou wilt give me thy heart.

Canst thou deny him anything, whose goodness created us, whose favor elected us, whose mercy redeemed us, whose wisdom converted us, whose grace preserved us, whose glory shall glorify us? Oh, "if thou knewest," as Christ said to the woman of Samaria,"If thou knewest who it is that saith unto thee" give me thy heart, thou wouldst say unto him, as Peter did when Christ would wash his feet (John 13:9),"Lord, not my feet only, but my hands and my head"; not my heart only, but all my body, and my thoughts, and my words, and my works, and my goods, and my life; take all that thou hast given. If ye ask me why you should give your hearts to God, I do not answer like the disciples which went for the ass and colt,"The Lord hath need" (Matt. 21:3), but you have need. If ever the saying were true (Acts 20:35),"It is more blessed to give than to take," more blessed are they which do give their hearts to God than they which take possession of the world. — Henry Smith

"My son, give me thine heart." For two reasons: Because, (1) unless the heart be given, nothing is given (Hos. 7:14; Matt. 15:8-9); (2) if the heart be given, all is given (2 Chron. 30:13-20). — Hugh Stowell

No possible compromise. Now, most people think, if they keep all the best rooms in their hearts swept and garnished for Christ, that they may keep a little chamber in their heart's wall for Belial on his occasional visits; or a three-legged stool for him in the heart's countinghouse; or a corner for him in the heart's scullery, where he may lick the dishes. It won't do! You must cleanse the house of him, as you would of the plague, to the last spot. You must be resolved that as all you have shall be God's, so all you are shall be God's. — John Ruskin

"My guilt is damnable," exclaimed a humble saint, "in withholding my heart; because I know and believe his love, and what Christ has done to gain my consent — to what? — my own happiness." — C. Bridges

It is said that during the persecution of the Papists by Queen Elizabeth, certain of the wealthy Catholics desired to save their lives by an open compliance with her intolerant laws, though they remained Romanists at heart. To their enquiry for direction it is reported that the Pope of that day replied, "Only let them give me their hearts, and they may for this time do as they are compelled to do." Whether the story is true or not, we may be sure that if the evil one can but keep the heart, he cares little what outward religion is practiced.