Friday June 7, 2024
Matthew 16:25
“Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
[In the past] we spoke of unhappy people. Today let us speak of happy ones.
Many of the latter do not have much temporal happiness. Oftentimes they are both poor and sick. Oftentimes, too, their homes are filled with adversity and trials.
Nor are people always kind to them. For which there may be good reasons. They are not faultless; they make mistakes, both in their own homes and elsewhere.
But they are happy.
Theirs is a remarkable happiness. It is not confined to festive occasions and meetings of various kinds, with music and exalted sentiment.
Nay, they are happy also in their daily lives.
The better we learn to know them, the more we see how happy they are. They are experiencing something, something which fills their lives and makes them rich, notwithstanding all their adversity, mistakes, and failures.
What do these people have? What do the joyless lack?
The joyless feel that the requirements of Christ are hard and unreasonable, and they rebel against the Spirit of God constantly.
The happy souls have felt this, too. But they have yielded; they have surrendered unconditionally and without haggling. And have been saved from their old selves and their old attitudes, saved into a new attitude which is willing to renounce sin and practice self-denial.
And when their old attitudes break through again and they find that they are not willing to deny themselves, they confess this to their Savior. And are saved anew.
This is why they are so happy and so rich. They experience continually the miracle-working grace of the Lord.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 