Morning By Morning #271

Blessed are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD? Deuteronomy 33:29

From the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

Someone who believes Christianity makes people miserable is a complete stranger to it. Our faith would be strange indeed if it made us miserable, for consider the position to which we have been exalted—we are children of God! Do you believe God would reserve happiness for His enemies and only send mourning to His family? Should His foes have gladness and joy, while His own children inherit sorrow and misery? Should a sinner who has no part in Christ be rich in happiness, while we must mourn as though we were penniless beggars?

No! We will “rejoice in the Lord always” (Phil. 4:4) and glory in our inheritance, “for [we] did not receive a spirit that makes [us] a slave again to fear, but [we] received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father’” (Rom. 8:15). As His children, “the rod of discipline” (Prov. 22:15) will rest on us when we deserve it, but it will also work in us the comforts of “the fruit of righteousness” (Phil. 1:11). As a result, through the aid of the divine Comforter, we—“a people saved by the LORD”—will rejoice in “God our Savior” (Ps. 68:19).

We are pledged to marriage with Christ, so can you imagine our loving Bridegroom allowing His bride to linger in constant grief? Our hearts are woven together with His and we are members of His body, and although we may suffer for a while, as our Head once suffered, we are even now blessed with heavenly blessings in Him. We have been given all the comforts of the Spirit, which are neither few nor small, along with the Spirit Himself who is the “deposit guaranteeing our inheritance” (Eph. 1:14). Thus, we are heirs of eternal joy and have already been given a foretaste of that inheritance. Even now we experience rays of the sunlight of joy as a prelude to our eternal sunrise.

Our everlasting riches lie beyond the sea; the eternal city with firm foundations lies on the other side of the river, and yet today, gleams of glory from the spiritual world ahead cheer our hearts and urge us onward. Truly this has been said of us: “Blessed are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD?”

From the pen of Jim Reimann:

Spurgeon briefly quotes from Romans 8 today. This beautiful chapter addresses the fact that we have already inherited God’s blessings and the idea that we should be looking to Christ’s return with eager, yet patient, anticipation. Here is how Paul said it:

If we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time…We ourselves…groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

Romans 8:17–18, 22 – 25