What would you ask for?

(Joseph Alleine, "Alarm to the Unconverted" 1671)

"That night God appeared to Solomon in a dream and said: What do you want? Ask, and I will give it to you!" 2 Chronicles 1:7

If God would give you your choice, as He did to Solomon — what would you ask for?

Go into the gardens of pleasure, and gather all the fragrant flowers there — would these satisfy you?

Go to the treasures of mammon — suppose you may carry away as much as you desire.

Go to the towers, to the trophies of honor — and become a man of renown.

Would any of these, would all of these satisfy you, and make you to count yourself happy? If so, then certainly you are carnal and unconverted.

Converting grace turns the heart from its idols — to the living God. Before conversion, the man minded his farm, friends, pleasures more than Christ. He found more sweetness in his merry company, worldly amusements, earthly delights — than in Christ. Now he says, "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ!" Philippians 3:7-8

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