COV LIFE BLOG

Psalm 16 – The Blessedness of Your Confession in Christ

No man that makes the worse choice of earth instead of God, ever, in the retrospect, said: ‘I have a goodly heritage.’ One of the later Roman Emperors, who was among the best of them, said, when he was dying: ‘I have been everything, and it profits me nothing.’

No man who takes the world for his portion ever said, ‘The lines are fallen to me in pleasant places.’ For the make of your soul as plainly cries out ‘God!’ as a fish’s fins declare that the sea is its element, or a bird’s wings mark it out as meant to soar. Man and God fit each other like the two halves of a tally.

You will never get rest nor satisfaction, and you will never be able to look at the past with thankfulness, nor at the present with repose, nor into the future with hope, unless you can say, ‘God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.’ But oh! if you do, then you have a goodly heritage, a heritage of still satisfaction, a heritage which suits, and gratifies, and expands all the powers of a man’s nature, and makes him ever capable of larger and larger possession of a God who ever gives more than we can receive, that the overplus may draw us to further desire, and the further desire may more fully be satisfied.

The one true, pure, abiding joy is to hold fellowship with God and to live in His love. The secret of all our unrest is the going out of our desires after earthly things. They fly forth from our hearts like Noah’s raven, and nowhere amid all the weltering flood can find a resting-place. The secret of satisfied repose is to set our affections thoroughly on God. Then our wearied hearts, like Noah’s dove returning to its rest, will fold their wings and nestle fast by the throne of God. ‘All the happiness of this life,’ said William Law, ‘is but trying to quench thirst out of golden empty cups.’ But if we will take the Lord for ‘the portion of our cup,’ we shall never thirst.

Let me beseech you to choose God in Christ for your supreme good and highest portion; and having chosen, to cleave to your choice. So shall you enter on possession of good that truly shall be yours, even ‘that good part, which shall not be taken away from’ you.

Alexander Maclaren

---

SCRIPTURES FOR THIS SUNDAY
Read Psalm 16. To what do you really cling to each day – this world or God? How do these verses encourage you to really, truly cling to and to hope in God?

SONG FOR THIS WEEK
Abide With Me by Matt Maher