“All Things Are Yours”

“All things are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.”

(1 Corinthians 3:21-23)

 

      We rejoice in the fact that all the blessings of the divine covenant are sealed to us by the redeeming work of Christ and the regenerating work of God the Holy Spirit. Since God reconciled us to himself, while we were yet enemies, through the blood of his Son, we are confident that he will freely give us all things with and in Christ (Romans 8:32).

 

      This promise gives us confidence in our pilgrimage here upon the earth. Yes, even those things that break our hearts, those afflictions that drain our bodies, and those trials that lay our spirits low are the gifts of our heavenly Father to us. Do not those things that are most bitter to the flesh tend to awaken your soul to faith and prayer? Do they not give you a sense of the emptiness of this world and the fading character of all it can yield? Does not the Spirit of God by these things call our sins to remembrance and provoke us to repentance and greater consecration to Christ? As the wicked are injured by their best things, God’s saints are made better by their worst. We are mended by our sicknesses, enriched by our poverty, strengthened by our weakness, enlivened by our sorrows, and increased by our losses. Our graces are kept alive by those very things that are the death of other men's souls. May he give us grace never to be offended by such gifts of grace, by which we reap such great benefits. All things are yours!” Weary pilgrim, let this promise sustain your soul in peace.

 

      “All things are yours!” This is a promise that fills our hearts with joyful anticipation with regard to heaven. Child of God, this is our promise for all eternity — “all things are yours.” I read of no secondary joys in heaven. None of God’s elect will be placed in the back settlements of Canaan. Whoever invented the doctrine of degrees in heaven knew nothing of free-grace. There is as much foundation for such a doctrine in Scripture as there is for the Romish doctrine of purgatory, and no more, All the saints shall see their Savior’s face. What more can any child of God desire? The dying thief went with Christ to paradise, and so did Paul. Their inheritance is the same. They are “forever with the Lord.”

 

      Heavenly glory, in all of its fulness, is altogether the reward of grace, not of debt. All the people of God are loved with the same perfect love. There are no degrees in God’s love. We were all chosen in Christ at the same time, and elected to the same glory. All the blessings of the covenant of grace were given to us in Christ before the world began. We are all redeemed with the same price, the precious blood of Christ. And by that blood, the Lord God has blotted out all our iniquities, transgressions and sins so thoroughly that he has promised never to remember them against us anymore forever. In Christ we are all perfectly justified and made righteous. We are made the very righteousness of God in him; and we are all the sons of God by eternal adoption and faith in Christ. All the saints of God are made kings and priests unto God in Christ. We are accepted and well-pleasing to God in Christ. Soon, we shall be like him. Can there be degrees of perfect glory? Perish the thought! — “All things are yours; and ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s!

 

 

Don Fortner

 

 

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