The Favor of God

"In His favor is life!" (Psalm 30:5)

How anxious are we to stand well with our fellow-men, and secure their favor! Are we equally so to stand well with God? The favor of man — what is it? A passing breath, which a moment may alienate, a look forfeit, and which, at best, a few brief years will forever terminate!

But the favor of God — how ennobling, constant, and enduring! In possession of His favor, we are independent alike of what the world either gives — or withholds. With it, we are rich — whatever else we lack! Without it, we are poor — though we have the wealth of worlds beside! Bereft of Him, we can truly say with aged Jacob, "I am bereaved!" Nothing can compensate for His loss — but He can compensate for the loss of everything!

Reader! are you a stranger to His favor, under the cheerless sense of alienation from God? Sin un-cancelled; peace un-purchased; all uncertainty about the question of your eternity? Who need ask, living thus, if you are satisfied, or happy? Satisfied? Impossible! Nothing can satisfy your infinite capacities — but the infinite God.

Nothing can fill up the aching voids of your immortal being — but Him "who only has immortality." Happy? Impossible! There can be no happiness with sin unforgivin; the conscience unappeased; eternal interests hanging overhead unsettled and unadjusted; death, and judgment, and eternity, all un-provided for! Living at this "dying rate," peace must be a stranger to your bosom!

Seek to make up your peace with God. Covet His life-giving favor. What a blessed fountain of unsullied joy has that soul which can look up to Heaven and say, "God is mine!" That word — that thought — wipes away every tear-drop — "My Father!" What though the perishable streams are dried, if you are driven to learn the truth, "All my springs are in You!" He may empty your cistern — but the Fountainhead remains. Job was the sorest of sufferers — but he could bear patiently to be bereft of all, save One, "Oh that I knew where I might find Him!"

"Go," said Chrysostom, exulting in this favor of the King of kings, when an earthly princess tried to shake his spirit, "Go, tell her that I fear nothing but sin!" Blessed state of conscious security!

The same mighty consolation which supported Jesus in His season of humiliation, forms the solace and rejoicing of His true people, "Because He is on my right hand — I shall not be moved." Blessed Jesus! Oh encompass me this night with Your favor as with a shield, and then, "I will both lie down and sleep in peace, for You alone, O Lord, make me live in safety!" (Psalm 4:8).

J.M.D.