Faith And Hope In Christ

By J. C. Ryle (1816 – 1900)

    Let us cleave to Christ more closely, love Him more heartily, live to Him more thoroughly, copy Him more exactly, confess Him more boldly, follow Him more fully.  Religion like this will always bring its own reward.  Worldly people may laugh at it.  Weak brethren may think it extreme.  But it will wear well.  At even time it will bring us light.  In sickness it will bring us peace.  In the world to come it will give us a crown of glory that fadeth not away.

    The time is short.  The fashion of this world passeth away.  A few more storms and tossings, and we shall be safe in harbor.  We travel towards a world where there is no more sickness – where parting, and pain, and crying, and mourning, are done with for evermore.  Heaven is becoming very year more full, and earth more empty.  The friends ahead are becoming more numerous than the friends astern.  “…Yet a little while and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry” (Heb. 10:37).  In His presence shall be fullness of joy.  Christ shall wipe away all tears from His people’s eyes.  The last enemy that shall be destroyed is Death.  But he shall be destroyed.  Death himself shall one day die (Rev. 10:14).

    In the meantime, let us live the life of faith in the Son of God.  Let us lean all our weight on Christ, and rejoice in the thought that He lives for evermore.

    Yes:  blessed be God!  Christ lives, though we may die.  Christ lives, though friends and families are carried to the grave.  He lives who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light by the Gospel.  He lives who said, “…O death, I will be thy plagues:  O grave, I will be thy destruction…” (Hos. 13:14).  He lives who will one day change our vile body, and make it like unto His glorious body.  In sickness and in health, in life and in death, let us lean confidently on Him.  Surely we ought to say daily with one of old, “Blessed be God for Jesus Christ!”