the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Music For the Soul
A HOPE BORN OF THE DAY
God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. - Colossians 1:27
There is a river in Switzerland fed by two uniting streams bearing the same name, one of them called the " white," one of them the "grey," or dark. One comes down from the glaciers, and bears the half-melted snow in its white ripple; the other flows through a lovely valley, and is discolored by its earth. They unite in one common current. So in the two verses (Romans 15:4 and Romans 15:13) we have two streams, a white and a black, and they both blend together and flow out into a common hope. In the former of them we have the dark stream - "through patience and comfort," which implies affliction and effort. The issue and outcome of all difficulty, trial, sorrow, ought to be hope. And in the other verse we have the other valley, down which the light stream comes - " the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope." So both halves of the possible human experience are meant to end in the same blessed result; and whether you go round on the one side of the sphere of human life, or whether you take the other hemisphere, you come to the same point, if you have traveled with God’s hand in yours, and with Him for your Guide.
I have traced the genealogy of the hope which is the child of the night. But we have also a hope that is born of the day, the child of sunshine and gladness, and that is set before us in the second of the two verses I have quoted. The darkness and the light are both alike to our hope, in so far as each may become the occasion for its exercise. It is not only to be the sweet juice pressed from our hearts by the wine-press of calamities, but that which flows of itself from hearts ripened and mellowed under the sunshine of God-given blessedness.
We have seen that the bridge by which sorrow led to hope was perseverance and courage; in this second analysis of the origin of hope, joy and peace are the bridge by which faith passes over into it. Observe the difference: There is no direct connection between affliction and hope, but there is between joy and hope. We have no right to say, "Because I suffer I shall possess good in the future "; but we have a right to say, "Because I rejoice - of course with a joy in God - I shall never cease to rejoice in Him." Such joy is the prophet of its own immortality and completion. And, on the other hand, the joy and peace which are naturally the direct progenitors of Christian hope are the children of faith. So that we have here two generations, as it were, of hope’s ancestors. Faith produces joy and peace, and these again produce hope.
Faith leads to joy and peace. Paul has found - and if we only put it to the proof, we shall also find - that the simple exercise of simple faith fills the soul with "a joy and peace." Gladness in all its variety, and in full measure, calm repose in every kind, and abundant in its still depth, will pour into my heart as water does into a vessel on condition of my taking away the barrier and opening my heart through faith. Trust, and thou shalt be calm. In the measure of thy trust shall be the measure of thy joy and peace.
'Music For The Soul' daily readings for a year from the writings of the Rev. Alexander Maclaren, D.D., selected and arranged by the Rev. Geo. Coates, published by A.C. Armstrong and Son, 51 East Tenth Street, (1897). The original text is in the Public Domain and this electronic version is free for anyone without cost or obligation. This a year long daily devotional was written by the Rev. Alexander Maclaren over 100 years ago. This Scottish pastor had a heart to follow Jesus and a love for souls.
