the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
John Gossner's Treasury
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. I desire to depart, and to be with Christ. Philippians 1:21-23. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. 1 Thessalonians 4:17-18.
Christians have always regarded the departure from this life as a going home. As a child who sojourns in a foreign land receives with joy and gladness the news that it is to return to the ancestral home, to its native country, so the Christian rejoices when he thinks of the last moment of his earthly life a moment that shall translate him to his eternal home, to his father’s house. In this as well as in many other respects, death is a great, yea, the greatest gain, if Christ be our life. This must not be overlooked. He who in truth can say with the apostle, "To live is Christ," will also with the full consent of his heart be able to say, ’’And to die is gain. " If Christ lives in you, you shall not die, but you shall gain infinitely by that which is called death. You shall no more be in danger of losing that life which you here begin in Christ. You shall be brought into safety and live eternally glorified and blessed in Christ with’ God. Shall not he who regards death, terrible to all the world, in this beautiful and delightful form, desire with St. Paul to depart? Should he not live more in the world to come, where he is assured that he shall remain through all eternity? In this world he walks as a pilgrim and has no lasting habitation. True, as with St. Paul, it must be done in perfect resignation so that for the sake of the Lord and the brethren we are willing to remain here as long as it may be of any benefit; but no Christian is without longing for home, without life in heaven. The joyful and living hope of once being forever with the Lord, lifts him even now up to the homelike mansions of eternal peace.
Grant me to murmur not,
Heaven is my home.
Whate’er my earthly lot,
Heaven is my home.
Grant me at last to stand
There at Thine own right hand,
Jesus, in Fatherland:
Heaven is my home.
