Is God Our God?

What is it for us to make God our God? It is this: to set up God a throne in our hearts; to give him a sovereignty over all things in the world, that we may say in truth of heart, God is our joy, God is our comfort, God is our rock, God is all in all to us. For all to whom he is a God in the covenant of grace, and have hearts to make him so, the Spirit raises up their affections to make him God to themselves. It is said of old, 'what we love most is our god.' What we joy most in is our god, what we rely on and trust in most is our god, as it was said of the 'wedge of gold' (Job 31:24). It is a query of the greatest concern in the world to put to our hearts. What do I make my god? As David put the query to himself: 'Now, Lord, what is my hope? is it not in thee?' (Psa. 39:7).
And so, put this query to ourselves: Lord, what is my joy, what is my hope, what is my trust, what is my comfort? Is it not in you? If our hearts cannot make an answer to this in some sincerity, surely yet we have not made God our God. But until, by the Spirit of God, we be brought to see an emptiness and vanity in the creature, and nothingness in all in comparison of God, that we can say, 'Whom have I in heaven but thee?' We have not comfort, because we do not make him ours. Alas! We may be ashamed of it; those best do often forget themselves. Oh, how do men value the favours of a man; and how does it grieve them to have the frowns of flesh and blood, the frowns of greatness! But when their consciences tell them they are under guilt of many sins, and God is not in good terms with them, how does this affect them? It is of greatest concern that we take God to be our God.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
A Heavenly Conference, pp. 121-22
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