The Right Human Life is its own Reward.
I. The life which we have received from nature, beyond a very brief stage, is impracticable: it will not hold together. One and one only human life can hold its own and renew itself for ever. Therefore, clearly, it is the only wise life, the only profitable life. All your real interests for time and all your real interests for eternity, you may stake on the life that recognises God for its source and law. It is as reliable as God's own existence. It will repay all your training, unfolding and unfolding for ever into higher and higher forms of humanity. Your strength and labour spent on any other human life will be lost and your time wasted.
II. The Highest, the Eternal, is capable of human development. More, God, who is the infinite Love and Reason, and Law and Power, seeks to unfold Himself in man. More, He can only reveal Himself to men and women, as He unfolds His powers inthem. He has revealed Himself, He is now revealing Himself, and He will be for ever revealing Himself to humanity. Whether in the heavens, or on the earth, humanity is the throne and the kingdom of His manifestation.
III. Godliness is not gloom, nor asceticism. It makes no man a monk, no woman a nun. To enjoy with God,all that God has created, is godliness. Godliness despises no good thing, no beautiful thing, but rather freely receives all good things in thanksgiving and turns them into gladness. In the enjoyment of this world's blessings, cherish the confidence that they are shadows, and only shadows, of richer blessings the perfectly human blessings and delights of our Father's Home-kingdom.
J. Pulsford, Our Deathless Hope,p. 115.
The Twofold Promise.
Paul's words are often quoted as if he meant that through godliness we might make our fortune here and hereafter, and as if a skilful Christian man might find life a sort of palatable soup, pleasant to the hungry and even to the dainty, by the due mixture of earthly and heavenly ingredients. The wages Christ earned of a wicked world were paid Him in full at Calvary. He entered into glory afterwards. His disciples, indeed, carried a wallet which was never without generous alms; and so godliness paid its way, as it always will do, but that way led it by the Cross. And so Christians may find that godliness is profitable for a livelihood and little more: a little more here, and much more hereafter. Here, a livelihood and afflictions; hereafter, rest and Divine riches; and so godliness with contentment is great gain.
I. We were born to advance and increase; and, therefore, to seek a higher place and a broader field may be, not only natural but godly. But God, who is highest of all, and in whom there can be no ambition, when He comes down to commence an ascending career, carries upward the world of sinners and sufferers in His own progress. As He rises, we rise. If, then, we set our affections on things above, they must be things where Christ is, not where Satan is.
II. The promise of godliness for the life to come is rest, satisfaction with God in that rest, and enjoyment of the results of our labour in that satisfaction. Rest is a sweet and necessary thing: so necessary that without a day of rest our days of work would be unendurable: so sweet, that it is the first thought of the wearied earthly traveller that he will find it at the end of his journey. In the heavenly Canaan, the land of promise, we shall be rich and happy. Yes, but we shall find rest. Two things must have our care in exercising ourselves unto godliness; and these will be one sure test of our advancing proficiency (1) We must pray; (2) we must revise our estimate of things temporal that are things desirable; (3) our proficiency will be shown in the ready, unprompted movement of our mind towards God in times of common or special activity.
T. T. Lynch, Three Months' Ministry,p. 25.
The Promise of Godliness for the Present Life.
The Apostle meant by godliness life under God's direct personal guidance, inspired by love to God, led in obedience to God and in personal communion with God. The Apostle means, further, to say, that to such a life God promises good and profitable things, not only in heaven, but here upon earth. That godliness has its possibilities of joy, of usefulness, of attainment, of victory, of knowledge, of social good, of spiritual stature, in this world as well as in the heavenly world.
I. And it seems to me that this must be true from the nature of the case. For if godliness consists in being loyally under God's administration, then it follows, of course, that a godly man is under that administration no less on earth than in heaven. A sovereign whose kingdom embraces mountain ranges and valleys, does not impose one law on the mountaineers and another on the men of the plains. The administration is one, and the loyal subject at the foot of the hills shares its privileges with the mountaineer. Conditions are different, but the king is the same, the law is the same; and whatever privileges of that administration are possible to the dweller in any part of it, are freely his.
II. I wonder if we all realise how much the Bible has to say about this life as compared with the next. Whatever the Bible may be, it is preeminently something to live by here. The more the significance that attaches to the future life, the stronger is the reason for giving us a manual for this life. Christ brings life to light by bringing immortality to light. Instead of turning away our thoughts from earth to heaven, He makes earth lighter and earthly life more significant with the light of heaven. There is too strong a tendency to make escape rather than victory the keynote of life. But the kingdoms of the world are promised to Christ. Sin is mighty, but Christ is mightier. God did not make this world to lose it. He did not make you and me to be dwarfs in holiness and weaklings in holy effort.
M. R. Vincent, The Covenant of Peace.,p. 33.
References: 1 Timothy 4:8. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xvi., Nos. 937, 946; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons to English Congregations in India,p. 66; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. ii., p. 99; Ibid., Plymouth Pulpit Sermons,3rd series, p. 355; J. Pulsford, Our Deathless Hope,p. 115; J. Tinling, Ibid.,p. 338; Ibid.,vol. iv., p. 104; A. J. Griffith, Ibid.,vol. xv., p. 348; H. P. Liddon, Ibid.,vol. xx., p. 353; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. v., p. 27;vol. x., p. 84.