Seeking for His Commandments

‘Keep and seek for all the commandments of the Lord your God.’—i Chron. xxviii. 8.
IS not this precept too often halved? We acknowledge our obligation to keep, but what about seeking for’all the commandments of the Lord our God? Are we doing this?

‘Thy commandment is exceeding broad,’ 1and our horizon must be continually widening if He is making us to go in the path of His commandments.’ Even when, by His grace, we have been led to take the seven beautiful steps in that path mentioned in that grand gush of Bible love, the 119th Psalm, believing them,3 learning them, longing for them, loving them,* delighting in them, keeping them,5 and not forgetting them,6 there remains yet this further step, seekingfor all of them.

Perhaps we have even a little shrinking from this. We are afraid of seeing something which might be peculiarly hard to keep; it seems as if it might be enough to try to keep what commandments we have seen without seeking for still more, and as if seeing more to keep would only involve us in heavier obligations and in more failures to keep them. And we almost wish we had never seen this added command, forgetting that shedding of blood was needed for sin ‘through ignorance.’7 But we have seen it, even if we never noticed it before; it is shown us to-day, and we have no alternative but obedience or disobedience to it.
Does not a loving child like to find out what its dear father wishes it to do? does it not feel sorry that it did not know all he wished in time to avoid doing just the contrary? How little we must love His will if we would rather not know it, lest it should clash with our own!8 Even to take the lowest ground, all His commandments are ‘ for our

1 Ps. cxix. 96. 2 Ps. cxix. 35. 3 Ps. cxix. 66.
< Ps. cxix. 73, 131, 127. 5 Ps, cxix. 47,115. ^ Ps. cxix. 176.
7 Lev. iv. 27-35. 8 Ps. xl. 8.

good,’1 and ‘in keeping of them there is great reward ;” so that we are clearly missing unknown good or unknown reward by remaining in ignorance of any of them. Nay, more, ‘it is your life ‘ * to observe to do all the words of His law.

We need not fear being left to struggle with newly discovered impossibilities; for, with the light that reveals a command, the grace to fulfil it will surely be given. It is very humbling when the Spirit’s light flashes upon some command of our God which we have never ‘observed,’ much less ‘ done ; ‘ * and yet it is a very gracious answer to the prayer, ‘Teach me to do Thy will.’5
I In reading His word, let us steadily set ourselves to seek for all His yet unnoticed commandments, noting day by day what we find; and thus knowing more of His will, will be a step towards doing more of it./ Let us not be content with vaguely praying, ‘Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” but set to work to see what He has already said’1 we are to do, and then, ‘Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.’8

1 Deut. X. 13. 2 Ps. xix. 11. 3 Deut. xxxii. 47.
^ Deut. xi. 32 ; xv. 5, etc. 6 Ps. cxliii. 10. ^ Acts ix, 6.
? Hab. ii. i. ^ John ii. 5.