Richest Foundation

Isaiah 49:15

 

The love and favor of God is the foundation of the Christian's happiness. If we could order our own heart aright, we would easily see that we could not be miserable so long as we were in favor with our God. If the favor of great persons be so much accounted of, what reckoning is to be made of God's favor, who is Lord of lords? Yea, King of kings, and the more should Christians fill their hearts with joining in this prerogative, if they consider three properties in the love of God.

• For first, it is a free love. He is gracious, looking upon His own goodness, and not on ours (Hos. 14:4).
• Secondly, it is an eternal love, and unchangeable. God will never be weary of loving us (Jer. 31:3). His loving-kindness is better than life, for it lasts unto eternity, without alteration. The favor of individuals in this world is mutable. Kings might extremely loathe those they used to love with their entire affection. But in God there is no shadow of changing; He loves with an everlasting love.
• Thirdly, it is infinitely immense, and great. No affection in any, or in all the creatures of this world, if they could be fastened upon one person, can reach to the thousandth part of God's love to us (Eph. 2:4-7).

 This light of God's countenance shining upon us makes us at all times more rich than those that are increased most in corn, wine, and oil (Ps. 4:7-8).

—Nicholas Byfield

 

Readings taken from Day by Day with the English Puritans