Scripture: "Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee."—Ps. Ixxiii. 25.
Alone with God—this is a word of the deepest importance. May we seek grace from God to reach its depths. Then shall we learn that there is another word of equally deep significance—Wholly for God.
As we find that it is not easy to persevere in this being "Alone with God," we begin to realize that it is because the other is lacking: we are not "Wholly for God." Because He is the Only God, and He alone the Adorable One, God has a right to demand that He should have us wholly for Himself. Without this surrender He cannot make His power known. We read in the Old Testament that His servants, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, and David, gave themselves wholly and unreservedly to God, so that He could work out His plans through them. It is only the fully surrendered heart that can fully trust God for all He has promised.
Nature teaches us that if anyone desires to do a great work he must give himself wholly to it. This law is specially true of the love of a mother for her child. She gives herself wholly to the little one whom she loves. And shall we not think it reason¬able that the great God of Love should have us wholly for Himself ? And shall we not take the watchword, "Wholly for God," as the keynote for our devotions, every morning as we rise? As wholly as God gives Himself to us, so wholly He desires that we give ourselves to Him.
Let us in the inner chamber meditate on these things alone with God, and with earnest desire ask Him by His almighty power to work in us all that is pleasing in His sight.
Wholly for God! What a privilege. What wonderful grace to fit us for it. Wholly for God! What separation from men, and work, and all that might draw us away. Wholly for God! What ineffable blessedness as the soul learns what it means, and what God gives with it.
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind" (Deut. vi. 5; Matt. xxii. 37).
"They sought Him with their whole desire, and He was found of them" (2 Chron. xv. 15).
"With my whole heart have I sought Thee" (Ps. cxix. 10).
