Daily Devotionals

Devotional: March 14th

THE PERMANENT LIFE OF THE CHRISTIAN

He that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. - 1 John 2:17

These words imply, not so much dwelling, or persistence, or continuousness, during our earthly career, as, rather, the absolute and unlimited permanence of the obedient life. It will endure when all things else, " the world, and the lust thereof," have slid away into obscurity, and have ceased to be. Now, of course, it is true that Christian men, temples of Christ, are subject to the same law of mutation and decay as all created things are; and it is true, on the other hand, that men whose lives are "cribbed, cabined, and confined" within the limits of the material and visible have these lives as permanent, in a very solemn and awful sense, inasmuch as their fruit continues, though it is fruitless fruit, and inasmuch as they have to bear for ever the responsibility of their past. The lives that run parallel with God’s will last, and when everything that has been against that will, or negligent of it, is summed up, and comes to nought, and is abolished, these lives continue. The life that is in conformity with the will of God lasts in another sense, inasmuch as it persists through all changes, even the supreme change that is wrought by death, in the same direction, and is substantially the same. For the man that was doing God’s will here, down among cotton bales, and ledgers, and retorts, and dictionaries, will do God’s will yonder, amidst the glories; and it will be the same life, with the same guiding principles, with the same root for its activities. So it will last for ever.

If we grasp the throne of God, we shall be co-eternal with the throne that we grasp. We cannot die, nor our work pass and be utterly abolished, as long as He lives. Some trees that, like sturdy Scotch firs, have strong trunks, and obstinate branches, and unfading foliage, looking as if they would defy any blast or decay, run their roots along the surface, and down they go before the storm; others, far more slender in appearance, strike theirs deep down, and they stand whatever winds blow. So strike your roots into God and Christ. "He that doeth the will of God abideth forever." And, "In My Father’s house are many abiding-places." They that have here dwelt in Christ, persistently seeking to have His truth dwelling in them and wrought out by them, will pass into the permanences of the heavenly home.

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