Last week we saw that the spiritually minded person comes to prayer with genuine faith toward God, love for Him, and delight in Him. We also saw that this person finds a deep spiritual satisfaction in prayer; he prays, not because he must, but because he loves to pray. Before we look at a few more indications of spiritual mindedness, we need to consider a warning.
The Danger of Spiritual Pride
There is a danger that is always looming over the horizon of our best spiritual exercises. We are inclined to feel satisfied with ourselves for having prayed well. Instead of being steeped in humility, as all true grace is, there is a tendency toward spiritual pride. We are always ready to sacrifice to our net and make offerings to our dragnet (Habakkuk 1:16). We find it the easiest thing in the world to put confidence in our flesh. We like to feel that we have done well, and we like others to notice. We like to be recognized and complemented. This sense of satisfaction can, before we know it, turn into pride.
This self-satisfaction is a far cry from the spiritual satisfaction that we addressed in the last post. And it is easy to be deceived by it if we aren't careful to examine our hearts in the matter. The language of spiritual satisfaction is “With the mighty deeds of the Lord God I will come; I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone” (Psalm 71:16). That of spiritual pride is like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable, “God, I thank you that I have done such and such,” (cf., Luke 18:11-12). The one is all about God; the other all about self. The one fills the soul with humility; the other fills with conceit. The one casts out all remembrance of what we have done and retains only a sense of what we have received from God; the other disregards what God has done and remembers only what we have done ourselves.
Being aware of the danger of spiritual pride, let us diligently examine our hearts in the matter, and pray all the more that God would fill us with humility and genuine spiritual satisfaction in Christ alone.
Spiritually Minded Prayer Produces Fruit
The next indication of spiritual mindedness that we should consider is that thoughts about spiritual things, when they come from the work of grace in our hearts, produce fruit in our lives. In particular, they work to make us humble, move us forward in holiness, and keep us in a state of spiritual alertness.
There are innumerable benefits of prayer that we could point out. Growth in grace and spiritual comfort are the primary among them. As long as a person continues in prayer, there will be some degree of spiritual growth. What is more, the person who prays as he ought will strive to live as he prays. To pray earnestly and live carelessly is evidence that such a person is not spiritually minded. By this, we can know where our thoughts about spiritual things really come from. If they move us to a constant, daily watch over ourselves so that we might live out our prayers, they are the work of grace in our hearts. If, however, we leave our prayers and never come to think of how we are to live in light of them, grace is conspicuously absent. A man who is occasionally fervent in prayer may yet be very poor spiritually if, when he stops praying, he is not careful and diligent about what he has prayed.
Spiritual Affections Motivate Prayer
When spiritual affections excite and animate prayer, rather than the act of prayer stirring up the affections, then we are spiritually minded. Gifts are meant to be servants, not rulers, in the mind. They are meant to follow grace, not to lead it. For the most part, where they lead, they are all alone. This is the natural order of things: grace moves the heart to pray; circumstances, directed by God's providence, give us the occasion to pray; a sense of duty calls for preparation to pray. Grace is at the head, and motivates prayer; duty only assists in the performance. If duty leads, everything is out of order.
It may be otherwise sometimes. A person who struggles to pray and laments the absence of spiritual affections may pray because he wants to be obedient and fulfill his spiritual duty. In praying, his affections may be stirred up and he may be enabled to pray earnestly and sincerely. Again, this might sometimes be the case, but we must be careful. If this is the rule, rather than the exception, there may be little or nothing of true grace at work. We might be deceived by the fervor and commotion of our affections into thinking that there is life in our prayers simply because we have attained a certain measure of emotion or because we have done our duty. The proper order, the only order that we should be content with on a regular basis, is when genuine faith, love, and spiritual desire move us to pray.
There Must Be More than Prayer
A person is spiritually minded when other duties of religion are equally regarded and carried out along with prayer. The person whose religion consists only of prayer has no true religion at all. God considers other spiritual disciplines just as important, and so must we. For example, we see that God responded to Cornelius, not only because of his prayers, but also because of his alms (Acts 10:31). James says that pure and undefiled religion consists largely in visiting "orphans and widows in their affliction" (James 1:27). A person's prayers are worthless, no matter how earnest or frequent, if he doesn't take seriously his responsibility to care for those in need.
For other posts in this series, check the directory.
This post is adapted from John Owen, Works, vol. 7, The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded, 261-497.
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