GOD’S RECIPE FOR A NEW YEAR

“For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that speak no
guile: Let him eschew evil, and do good, let him seek peace, and ensue it. For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil,” (1 Peter 3:10-12).

Everybody wants to enjoy life, to be happy, to “to have a good time,” but few people are willing to believe
that God knows better than they do and how they can attain to true happiness. All the world is in a mad rush.
desperately trying to get the most out of life, and finding in the end only disappointment and death. False
ideas of life, fostering a foolish fondness for self-satisfaction, can lead only to eventual frustration and
defeat. Our text prescribes a better way.
Note that it is not wrong to wish to love life and see good days. It is no part of God’s directive will that
men should make themselves miserable. There is not necessarily any virtue in unhappiness. On the
contrary, most blessed or happy of all beings is our blessed God, Creator of all, and the most blessed or
happy of His creatures are those closet to Him. So David sang for the Messiah:
(Psalm 16:11).
“Thou will show me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures
for evermore.
But what life is it that we wish to love? If it is only our life here in this flesh and in this world, then we are
doomed to disaster, to eternal sorrow and woe. Our text has in view a better life: a life received from God
and returning to God; a life opening up to us an ever new and increasingly glorious experience; a life of
joy overcoming the affictions of this present world to become a life of joy unmixed with any sorrow in the
world to come.
Professing Christians in chronic discontent, continually complaining against the Christ they claim to trust
know little if anything of the salvation of the Lord as Presented in His Word. We can and should be in love
with life if we have the life of Christ within us: we can and should desire to see good days even in this
age: and our text provides a recipe to insure the front of this desire.