March 17

God, who has called you into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful. — 1 Cor 1:9 BSB

When God calls His people by His grace, He calls them to the highest joy and greatest glory He could bestow upon humanity. And this joy and glory are not only for eternity but also for this life, not only beyond the grave but before it. He appeals to them through His prophet, “Have I been a wilderness to Israel? A land of darkness?” (Jer. 2:31). When God calls His people away from the pleasures of this world, is it only to lead them into paths of affliction and sorrow? Does He call them out of Egypt only to starve them in the wilderness? This was the complaint of the ancient murmurers, who said that Moses brought them out of Egypt to kill them with thirst (Exodus 17:3).

Does God take His people away from earthly pleasures to abandon them to misery? No! He calls them to the greatest privileges and highest favor that His everlasting love could bestow, which is nothing less than "the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord"—union and communion with the Son of God by grace in this life, and a share in His glory in the life to come. God’s dear Son has always been the object of His eternal delight. His fixed purpose from all eternity was to glorify Him, and in fulfilling this purpose, He gave Him a people whom He formed for Himself so that they might show forth His praise. This is why the Redeemer could say to His Father, “All mine are Yours, and Yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.”