2 Kings 2:9 - Homiletics

Desire for spiritual exaltation.

The Apostle Paul exhorts his converts to "covet earnestly the best gifts" ( 1 Corinthians 12:31 ). Selfishness can intrude everywhere; and no doubt there may be a selfish desire for high spiritual gifts and powers, merely to promote our individual glorification. We must be on our guard, not only against the more vulgar forms of selfishness, but also against those rarer and more recondite forms of it which constitute the special temptations of minds not accessible to low motives of the ordinary kind. It is, perhaps, difficult for us, in all eases, to discern our own motives; but an honest wish to discern them will go a long way towards enabling us to arrive at the truth. Desire for spiritual exaltation is noble, pure, and right—

I. WHEN OUR MOTIVE IS TO BE OF GREATER USE TO OTHERS . In this case our wish will be for the gifts which tend most to the good of others—for the power to edify, for the power to console, for the power to convert the wicked, for the power to strengthen the upright. We shall not desire to be clever, or eloquent, or logical, or deeply learned; but to be able to win souls to Christ. We shall not be concerned about other persons' estimates of us; we shall not want their admiration, or their praise, or even their good opinion; but we shall want to see some fruit of our ministerial labors, some increase of earnestness and spiritual-mindedness amongst those who are committed to our charge, some improvement in their habits, some greater zeal, some warmer devotion, some higher spirit of self-sacrifice.

II. WHEN OUR MOTIVE IS THE GREATER GLORY OF GOD . God is glorified in the perfection of his creatures; and desire of spiritual exaltation is right when we really and truly desire it for this end. But it is hard to know when this is the case. Great saints, no doubt, have attained to such a condition, and have longed to reach nearer and nearer to spiritual perfectness, not from any selfish motive, but purely to do more honor to God, to glorify him in their souls and spirits, which are God's. But so few attain to this spiritual height, that a man can scarcely be justified in assuming to himself that he has reached it. We shall do well to suspect our own motives; to keep strict watch upon ourselves, to be on our guard against the insidiousness of self-seeking. Ascetics in all ages, and some in the present age who do not affect any remarkable strictness or severity of life, but call themselves searchers after occult science, or after the higher wisdom, or esoteric Buddhists, or by some other similar outlandish name, and profess to be seeking high spiritual perfection as their own highest good, do not for the most part seek to conceal the selfishness of their aims, or pretend to be actuated either by the wish to benefit others or the desire to promote the glory of God. Their self-training and self-culture begin and end in self, and have nothing noble, or grand, or admirable about them; but, if they are insincere, are a cloak for ordinary vulgar self-seeking, and, if they are sincere, are the result of a delusion cast on them by Satan.