Run, Don't Walk

“I shall run the way of Your commandments, for You will enlarge my heart” (Psalm 119:32).  To run the way of God’s commandments, as opposed to walking, requires an enlarged heart.  Only God can do this.  Brothers and sisters in Christ, ask God, plead with God, to enlarge your heart!  By running is meant obeying God’s commands with zeal, readiness, and persistence.  This obedience is not undertaken reluctantly, but with delight.  Its foundation is an ever increasing desire to obey the Lord.  This requires a heart that is greatly motivated, and has found compelling reasons to firmly resolve to obey.  But Christians cannot enlarge their own hearts.  Their fixed purpose to obey must be made with an acknowledgment of their own insufficiency.  Believers do not rely on their resolution, but on God’s grace to run in the way of His commands.  Thomas Manton said that Christians are running in the way God intended when they make this their business, when they are earnestly pursuing the “enjoyment of God and Christ in the way of obedience.”  This running is necessary, it is what God has called us to.  All of the Puritan writers emphasized that true happiness lies in the enjoyment of God.  God enlarges our hearts in obedience that we might experience more of Him.