All things are of God

“The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty. He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love. He will joy over thee with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17).

So speaks the Lord concerning Zion, the city of the great king. In a future day it shall be a centre of blessing—blessed, and made a blessing to others.

But we may make an application to ourselves in these happy Christian times and delight ourselves as we do so. “The Lord our God,” to us is “our Father” and we are His children. Well may we cherish the thought of

HIS STRENGTH.

He is mighty indeed. All mighty. None can stay His hand or say. What doest Thou? And His omnipotence is for us.

“He everywhere hath sway,

    And all things serve His might;

His every act, pure blessing is,

    His path unsullied light.”

His infinite love uses His infinite power in infinite wisdom towards us all and He cares for us in every detail of our goings.

“He nothing does not suffers to be done” which we shall not approve when we see “the end of the Lord” in all that He brings or suffers to come upon us.

Thus we rejoice in

HIS SALVATION

through all our circumstances. He was enough as to our sins. He is enough as to our circumstances and sorrows as we journey on. Passing through the valley of Baca (tears) He can make it, and does make, it a well of refreshment and encouragement, while the rain, His heavenly ministry, covers the wilderness with blessings in abundance.

So He brings us on “from strength to strength,” saving us “to the uttermost” that is, to the very last step of our homeward way.

And soon these bodies of weakness and humiliation will be changed. Power and honour will be ours as in spiritual bodies, incorruptibility will be our portion eternally.

Thus will His salvation be completed and He will find

HIS SATISFACTION

in the accomplishment of the good pleasure of His will concerning us. “He will rejoice over us with joy, He will rest in His love.”

For this He marked us out—for sonship to Himself—that we might be before Him in His home on high.

Comely with the comeliness He has put upon us, He will rejoice in the perfection of His own work while His holy eye rests with complacency upon us.

Now He is active in His love, working for us and working in us that which is well-pleasing in His sight by Jesus Christ. He knows what is best for us for our spiritual advancement and acts for our profit and that we “may be partakers of His holiness”—that is, more and more conformed to His thought for us.

But in that day when the Father’s house is reached and we are filling its courts with our praises He will rest in His love, for the activities of His love will no longer be called for as they are now. Then love’s object will be fully gained and He will give expression to it in

HIS SINGING

as He joys over us. How marvellous that we should contribute to His joy and gladness.

We who once were enemies in our minds by wicked works and alienated from the life of God. But all is of Himself, “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them.” And may it not be that the good works may embrace our worship in His presence as we joy before Him and rest in the sense of His love eternally and break forth into singing also?

I.F.