REAL JOY by Bridges

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 25, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 12.

REAL JOY.

By Bridges

To drink and thirst again is the disappointment of the world. To drink and never thirst is the portion of the gospel. "My blessed hope," said a dying Christian, "is worth a thousand worlds. This is the grand discovery—the summum bonum indeed. God would have us rejoice in our labor—enjoy our earthly blessings, but not rest in them. Let earth be the cistern only, not the fountain. Let its best blessing be loved after him, for him, as the sunbeam of his love. Let nothing of earth be our rest. God never intended so poor a portion for his redeemed ones. Our rest is built upon unchangeable promises. Meanwhile the real joy is when God is the center, and the Saviour (as one of the German Reformers beautifully expresses it) is to us the treasure and the key of all the good things of God.—Bridges.