Reading: “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” Jeremiah 29:11
Now, my brethren, concerning the resurrection of our Saviour you know best yourselves how you look at all these things, and what you think about all these things, as also whether you think about them at all. You know best yourselves what you are seeking after as your chief good and as your heart’s one desire out of this present world. But whatever your chief end in life may be your Saviour’s chief end concerning you is clear: it is so published in a thousand Scriptures that it cannot be overlooked or mistaken—it is nothing less than your eternal life; it is nothing less than your personal knowledge of the true God, and of Jesus whom He hath sent.
He looks on you, and on all your affairs, in the light of your eternal life. If that miscarries in His hand then you are lost—but none of them are lost, He says, but the son of perdition. He looks on you in the light of eternal life alone; and He refuses to let any of His dealings with you, or any part of His rule over you to be judged, to be either praised or blamed, till that day when you will either enter on your eternal life with Him for ever, or will be for ever shut out of His presence. And more than that, you will never understand either Him, or any single one of His appointments concerning you, or of His administrations over you and your affairs, till you begin to look at all these things in the same light that He looks at them. But then, when you begin to do that in His light you will see light clearly.
Your eternal life is the true key to all the Father’s secret counsels concerning you; and to all the Son’s deep administrations over you; and to all the Holy Spirit’s operations within you. Be like that wise and deeply experienced psalmist then who said, “Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory” (Psalm 73:24).
“A man’s greatest care should be for that place where he dwelleth longest; therefore eternity should be in his scope.”—Thomas Manton
Adapted from Alexander White
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