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A MERRY HEART (IV)
MONDAY, MAY 3
1 Peter 1:3-5

1 Corinthians 15:19-26

 

“If in this life only we have

hope in Christ…”

 

A MERRY HEART (IV)
 
A merry heart is full of hope. Whereas the heart of the worldling is like a ship untethered, drifting with the wind, bobbing with the waves, tossed with the tempests, never very merry for long; the Christian has “an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast” (Heb 6:19). Whereas the hope of the worldling fades with the horizon, the Christian looks for “a better country, that is, an heavenly” (Heb 11:16).
 
Without this hope, we would have no defence against the miseries of life in this fallen world. Who can face unmoved the prospect of his own imminent death? Who can endure the pain of a loved one lost? A secular poet steeped in melancholia writes, “O, for the touch of a vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that is still!” But the Apostle urges, “I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope” (1 Thess 4:13). Indeed, a “Christian” life without this hope, can hardly be called “Christian” at all! “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (1 Cor 15:19).
 
Dear reader, do you see what it is that secures and anchors this hope most firmly? “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet 1:3-5). It is that Christ is “risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Cor 15:20). Only in this hope can we stand firm against that most stubborn of human griefs, “the last enemy” (1 Cor 15:26), death.
 
If you would have a merry heart, then, seek it not from the treacherous fountain of worldly delights: but meditate, with hope and praise, on the glorious resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and look for His soon return!
 
THOUGHT: Where my hope is, my joy is.

PRAYER: Father, help me to remember and to hope in the resurrection!

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