All the Days

“I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” Matthew 28:20

The margin reads, “Lo I am with you all the days, even unto the end of the world.”

What a comfort!

Because some days will be days of discipline, where the pruning knife meets the cleansing fire. But when He is with us, His discipline is a mercy, not a curse. It teaches the believer to grasp the right Hand of the Lord more firmly, pray more earnestly, and search more diligently, the promises of His Word. To discover that He is with us in tribulation, giving endurance to our affliction and strength to our mind, heart, and character.

Every day will be a day of mercy. Remember, it is of the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed. And if He is with us, we will have the experience that reaps unfailing joy from studying His Person and work. These experiences will revive and deepen our gratitude so that, after each fresh mercy, we will sing a new song.

Many of the days, too, will be days of routine. Time must be spent on “little things.” Yet moments given by Eternal Love are never little. Household chores, caring for a sick or aged loved one, common anxieties, unnoticed toil; they’re all from Him. So He notices. True, in those moments we may long for a more striking and experimental experience doing these routine things. But when He is with us, we know He’s conforming to His image. Remember, dear one, Jesus lived among carpenters' tools, village streets, and regular people. The routine is, in fact, a love message. Jesus, Himself, walked our way.

And every day will be a day of temptation. In the home, at work, with friends, and alone, we will encounter the waves of the storm. But when the Lord is near, the tempist will only reveal the Helping Hand of the Spirit (1 Cor. 10:13). It will give Him opportunity to gain many more victories for you, and in you. It will be an instrument He uses to impart more grace to our faith, courage to our patience, and trust to our love.

One of the days will be the day of death. But because He has promised never to leave or forsake us, death will be the last task in the training that prepares the child of God for an inheritance incorruptible. We must cross the River Jordan to reach the Celestial City. He did it Himself. And the servant is not greater than his Lord. In those flooding waters, His everlasting Arms will sustain us. On the other side, we will see His Face through Gate Beautiful.

Therefore, in every kind of day, whatever kind of day, He is with us. Read it again, dear one, “even to the end.”

And through the end...

beyond the end...

to a new and eternal beginning.

The believer says, “Whether I live, therefore, or whether I die, I am His, and He is mine.”