| | I am very bad about updating this blog as my readers may have already noticed...today, however, I feel compelled to share this point of conviction that I was reminded of as I prepared to teach my high-school girl's Sunday school class.
Thomas Watson (English Puritan pastor c.1620-1686) reminds us:
We glorify God by walking cheerfully. It brings glory to God, when the world sees a Christian has that within him that can make him cheerful in the worst times; that can enable him, with the nightingale, to sing with a thorn at his breast. The people of God have ground for cheerfulness. They are justified and adopted, and this creates inward peace; it makes music within, whatever storms are without. 2 Corinthians 1:4. 1 Thessalonians 1:6.
2 Corinthians 1:4 - who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
1 Thessalonians 1:6 - And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit,
If we consider what Christ has wrought for us by his blood, and wrought in us by his Spirit, it is a ground of great cheerfulness, and this cheerfulness glorifies God. It reflects upon a master when the servant is always drooping and sad; sure he is kept to hard commons, his master does not give him what is fitting; so, when God’s people hang their heads, it looks as if they did not serve a good master, or repented of their choice, which reflects dishonour on God. As the gross sins of the wicked bring a scandal on the gospel, so do the uncheerful lives of the godly. Ps 100:2. ‘Serve the Lord with gladness.’ Your serving him does not glorify him, unless it be with gladness. A Christian’s cheerful looks glorify God; religion does not take away our joy, but refines it; it does not break our viol, but tunes it, and makes the music sweeter.”
~ from the sermon Man’s Chief End (emphasis mine) |
| | Posted 2/23/2008 10:41 AM - 1 comments
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