A Daily Pursuit

If we have all these blessed liberties in this world and in that to come by the Spirit, then we should labour to have the Spirit of Christ, or else we have no liberty at all; and labour every day more and more to get this spiritual liberty in our consciences, to have our consciences assured by the Spirit that our sins are forgiven, and to feel in our consciences a power to bring under sin that has tyrannized over us before. Let us every day, more and more, labour to find this spiritual liberty, and prize daily more the ordinances of God, sanctified to help us know this liberty. Attend upon spiritual means, that God has sanctified, wherein he will convey the Spirit. There were certain times wherein the angel came to stir the waters of the pool of Bethesda (John 5:7). So, the Spirit of God stirs the waters of the word and ordinances and makes them effectual. Attend upon the ordinances of God, the communion of saints, and so on, and the Spirit of God will slide into our souls in the use of these holy means. There is no man who will not find this to be true. He finds himself raised above himself in the use of holy means. The more we know the gospel, the more we have of the Spirit; and the more of the Spirit we have, the more liberty we enjoy. If we prize and value outward liberty, as indeed we do, and we are naturally moved to do so, how should we prize the charter of our spiritual liberty, the word of God, and the promises of salvation, whereby we come to know all our liberty, where we have all the promises opened to us; the promise of forgiveness of sins, of necessary grace; the promise of comfort in all conditions whatsoever. Therefore, let us everyday labour to grow farther and farther both in the knowledge and in the taste and feeling of this spiritual liberty.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
Glorious Freedom, p. 52 [57-58]
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