Regarding the Inheritance as Mine

My first thought when I read the following (first paragraph) was that I do not deserve this, and so I shrink from embracing it as my reality, somehow as if it lacks humility to think on these things.  My second thought was the realization that this is the Story God has written, already revealing it in Scripture; and so I dishonor Him by not accepting it, rejoicing in it, and living in a way that befits it – with overwhelming wonder, joy, and gratitude infusing every thought and action of my day.

   

The sight of Jesus is the joy awaiting me.  My hope is set on Him.  I shall walk with Him, and talk with Him.  I shall share His glory.  With my own lips I shall tell Him how much I owe Him.  With His own lips He shall answer me, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in My throne".

Those are some elements in the beauty and excellence of the inheritance towards which I am a traveler.  I am emboldened to regard it as mine, because One who is my Savior and my Elder Brother has taken possession of it for me.  In the days of heaven which come to me on earth, I have foretastes of its victory, its holiness, its peace; and these whet my appetite for the banquet within the veil.  But I would not miss the practical influence which such soul-filling prospects ought to wield over me.  They are not accomplishing their proper mission unless they are purifying the whole circle of my beliefs, my motives, my decisions, my words, my activities.  The anticipation of the world to come should be a constant and supreme incentive to patience, to separation and consecration, to courage and endurance, to seriousness and yet to gladness, in the world that now is.  The poet delineates the grammarian of the Renaissance, who went on conjugating his Greek verbs with deliberate care..  He refused to hurry, for haste would merely mar his work; and had he not all eternity before him?  It is what I should feel:  I have all eternity before me, and let me behave myself as an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ.

And thus the everlasting tomorrow will cast its light and glow across the evanescent today.

--Alexander Smellie