Determining the Condition of Our Desires (2)

(3) True desires are not only for the favour of God, but for the graces that will alter our natures. Now when desire is for these graces, it is a holy desire. To desire grace, which is as opposite to our corrupt nature as fire is from water, this is an argument of a holy principle of grace in us. When a man from the bottom of his heart can desire; 'Oh that I could serve God better! That I had a heart more enlarged, more mortified, more weaned from the world! That I could fear God more!'--it is for certain a true desire.
(4) True desire is carried to grace as well as to glory; the desire of heaven itself. A true spirit that is touched with grace, with the Spirit of God, desires heaven not for the glory, and peace, and abundance of all contentment, as much as it desires it as the place where it will be freed from sin, and where the heart will be enlarged to love God, to serve God, and to cleave to God forever, and as the condition wherein he will have the image and resemblance of Jesus Christ perfectly upon his soul. We pray, 'Your kingdom come,' that is, we desire that you would rule more and more largely in our souls, and subdue all opposite power in us, and bring into captivity all our desires and affections. Let 'Your kingdom come' more and more. 'Let your will be done' in us more and more,
'in earth as it is in heaven' (Matt. 6:10). These desires argue an excellent frame of soul.
(5) Where a man has holy desires of any grace, he will desire the means whereby those graces may most effectually be wrought in his heart. He will hear the word as the word of God. He comes not to hear the word because of the eloquence of the man that delivers it. It is the powerful word of God and with it the efficacy of the Spirit to work the graces he desires.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
At the Throne of Grace, Works, vol. 6, pp. 99-100
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