Tuesday June 18, 2024
1 Timothy 4:8-9
Bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way,
as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.
You who have godliness and live in the fear of God, believe that in godliness there is provided for you comfort, joy and delight for ‘the life that now is’. Do not postpone your feasting upon Christ till you see him face to face. Feed on him this day. Do not wait for the joys of the Holy Spirit till you have shaken off this cumbrous clay; the joy of the Lord is your strength today. Do not think that your peace and rest remain as yet in the future, hidden from you; eternal life with its present blessings is a present possession. ‘We which have believed do enter into rest’, and may enter now.
‘The men of grace have found glory begun below,
Celestial fruits on earthly ground from faith and hope do grow.’
We do not say that godliness has made all believers rich, for some here will be content always to be poor. All the faithful cannot claim that godliness has brought them earthly treasure, for some of the greatest of them have confessed that ‘if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.’ But all of us can declare that we have found in godliness the highest happiness, the supremist delight and the richest consolation. You who profess godliness, do not be content unless you have the ‘promise of the life that now is’. Believe that you can now be raised up together and made to ‘sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus’. You cannot find a heaven in things below ‘where moth and rust doth corrupt,’ but you can, while here, if you ‘set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth’, find glory begun within you and a young heaven already shining about your path.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
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