…yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. (Habakkuk 3:18, NIV)
There is comfort in knowing, when the freeze and the fog lay hold of our surroundings and make little room for golf, that the days really are getting longer again and the sunshine will find its way back to us.
There is comfort in knowing, as Habakkuk did, that when the crops are fruitless and the ewes barren, when the grapes wither on the vine and the cows give no milk, God reigns all the same, and our praises of him feed our own souls too.
There is comfort in knowing that when our children do not honor us, our saving God is at hand, delivering patience to us and truth to those wayward ones. His desires are firm, especially the desire to bring everyone to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).
There is comfort in knowing that my sins—as much as I may hate them and yet cannot shake them—will not be counted against me when I am in Christ Jesus. For it is in him, under the covering of his atoning blood shed at the cross, that I have any argument before the Judge of all.
There is comfort in knowing that I do not walk alone in my following of Christ, but that I walk instead with brothers and sisters. They are no more perfect than I, but somehow—wonder of God!—when we humbly confess to one another and serve one another as he has commissioned us to do, our Father has equipped us to encourage one another through the hearts and the words we turn toward each other.
There is comfort in knowing that when I have reached the end of my days, God has not reached the end of his. He will continue, and it may well be that his purposes through me may continue after I am gone, as when a friend or grandchild or colleague looks back at what they have seen God do in my life and suddenly is awakened to the need of God in their own.
There is comfort in knowing that when the dead arise and stand before the throne of God, eternity in his presence is promised to those who have remained faithful in their faith, clinging to the King, to Jesus.
Friends, don’t you see? There is so much more than comfort in knowing these things and many others like them—there is joy! there is reason for daily rejoicing!
—
Jeff Hopper
January 5, 2012
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The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday through Friday at www.linksplayers.com.