Gold Nugget 376 - Spheres of Present Recompense

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      It is quite certain that the true and loyal servant of God will be abundantly rewarded; it is not certain when or how he will receive his recompense.  There are three spheres in which that reward may lie.  It may be largely, almost wholly, in the future.  Bitter and protracted persecution may make the present life nearly worthless, so far as happiness is concerned.  Or it may be largely in the sphere of the spiritual – in the cleansed and pure heart; in elevation of character; in fellowship with God.  Or it may be partly in the present and the temporal. … Our text deals with the last of these. …

      The reaping of the fruit of his labour.  The builder rejoices in the house which he has erected, the farmer in the fields he has made productive, the florist in the garden he has planted, the author in the book he has written, the statesman in the measures he has passed into law, etc.  Apart from the physical comfort it may bring us, we have a pleasure in the effect of honest and faithful work.  And if a man cherishes a humble and grateful spirit, it is permissible that he enjoys the success which he has achieved, and the honour or the pleasure he has earned by patient industry. 

      Domestic delights.  The wife to her husband, the husband to his wife, is a “goodly heritage” – a joy and a treasure which no prince can confer, no money will buy.  True conjugal affection, the outgrowth of mutual esteem, is a source of lasting and elevating gladness of heart, for which all who have possessed it should give heartiest thanks to the Giver of all good.  And with a sense of recipiency should be associated a sense of duty; it becomes husband and wife to maintain through life the sweetness and excellency of this attachment; to do this by mutual courtesy, self-sacrifice, concession, tender ministry in health and in sickness, united effort on behalf of others.

      Parental.  Children should be welcomed as precious gifts from the kind hand of God.  They “bring love with them,” but they do more than that – they open our nature and call forth its best affections; they unseal fountains of purest feeling which otherwise would not have flowed forth; they immeasurably enrich our souls and our lives by the love they evoke and by the love they return.  They to whom children are not given will render themselves a most valuable service and give themselves the best opportunity of doing good, by adopting the fatherless and the motherless, and making them their own.  Children, if ordinarily affectionate, will soon excite tender feeling in the breast; and many are they who have learnt to love the child of their adoption with a warmth and with a depth of love that went far beyond their anticipation, and that greatly enlarged their heart and enhanced the value of their life.

      Children should be treated as the most sacred charge placed in the hand of man by the hand of God.  No one can tell the capacities and possibilities that are folded in the form and hidden in the heart of a little child.

      Children should realize how much they owe to those who have expended on them the wealth of a parent’s love.  It becomes them to be a constant source of joy at home, and to be a defense and protection against all that would invade its peace.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Psalms III p. 235-236, Psalms 128:1-6, (E. R Conder, W. Clarkson)

 

See also:  1 Corinthians 15:19, Psalms 127:3-5, Genesis 33:5

 

Gold Nugget 376

Spheres of Present Recompense

 

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