'Voices From The Past' Vol. 1 — January 31

CONSIDER GOD in your own experiences of him. There is a taste and sight of his goodness. This surpasses the greatest capacity of a mere natural understanding. Have not many of you found the delightful, gentle moving of God into your souls, sprinkled with his inward blessings as you seek him? Have you not sensed his gentle rebuke in your conscience when you are slipping away from him? Have you not found sometimes an invisible hand raising you up when you were dejected, or some unexpected providence stepping in for your relief? Our hearts can easily realize that it was not a work of chance. You have found that he is indeed a 'rewarder of those who seek him', and you can set your seal that he is what he has declared himself to be in his Word. As it is a folly to deny the being of God, it is also a folly not to worship him as God. Worship is his right, as he is the author of our being and the fountain of our happiness. By worship we acknowledge his deity. We might profess his being, yet we practically deny him if we neglect his worship. To deny him worship is just as great a folly as to deny his being. The Jews gave a reason why man was created in the evening of the Sabbath: that he might begin his life with the worship of his maker. As soon as he found himself a creature, his first solemn act should be worship. God created the world for his glory, and people for himself, that he might have the honour from his work. Since we live and move in him, we should live and move to him and for him. He that denies God's being is an atheist to his essence; he that denies God's worship is an atheist to his honour. It is a bad mark for an ungodly man that God is not in all his thoughts, but what comfort can we have without thinking of him in reverence and delight? A God forgotten is as good as no God at all to us.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Devotional Readings 'Voices From The Past Vol.1.'
Stephen Charnock, The Existence & Attributes of God, pp. 65-66
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