Let Us Draw Nigh! by Andrew Murray

40 LET US DRA IV NIGH
wonder that the first thing He asks, as He calls
us unto Him, is the heart—a true heart ; our
inmost being must in truth be yielded to Him,
true to Him.
True religion is a thing of the heart, an inward
life. It is only as the desire of the heart is
fixed upon God, the whole heart seeking for God,
giving its love and finding its joy in God, that a
man can draw near to God. The heart of man
was expressly planned and created and endowed
with all its powers, that it might be capable of
receiving and enjoying God and His love. A
man can have no more of religion, or holiness,
or love, or salvation, or of God, than he has in
his heart.
As much as a man has of the inward
heart religion, so much has he of
no more. As far as Christ through His Spirit is
salvation, and
within the heart, making the thoughts and will
likeminded with Himself, so far can a man's
worship and service be acceptable to God. The
Kingdom of God consists entirely in the state of
the heart. Therefore God can ask for nothing
else and nothing less than the heart—than a
true heart.
What the word true means we see from the
use of it made previously (viii. 2 and ix. 24),
the true tabernacle, and, the Holy Place, which
are figures of the true. The first tabernacle was