Knowing That Christ Is at the Father's Right Hand (3)

Christ's ascension is a ground of contentment in all conditions. What if we lack comfort, houses, or anything on earth, when we have heaven provided for us, and glory provided for us in our Head? Will not any condition content a man in this world, who has such a glorious condition in the eye of faith to enter into? We should look up to heaven with comfort: Yonder is my Saviour, yonder is a house provided for me. Here we may lack comforts, we may be thrust out of house and home, out of our country and all; but all the world, and all the devils in hell, cannot thrust us out of heaven, nor dissolve or break the communion that is between Christ and us. Therefore, we should be content with any condition in this world. Christ is ascended into heaven, to keep a blessed condition for us.
Likewise, when we think of the troubles of this world, of the enemies we have here, we must often only think of Christ taken up to glory. But he first suffered, and then he entered into glory. We must be content to suffer first, and then be glorified. We were predestined to be conformed to Christ's image. Where stands our conformity? It is first in being humbled, and then being glorified. Christ entered into glory in this order, and will we think to come to heaven in another order than Christ did? If we are in Christ, all that we suffer in this world, are sufferings of conformity that make us like our Head and fit us for glory. Our greatest humiliations, what are they in comparison to the humiliation of Christ? None was ever so low, and there is none so high. As he was the lowest in humiliation, so he is the highest in glory. When he was at the lowest, in the grave, not only dead, but under the kingdom and command of death, then he rose gloriously and ascended. Our lowest humiliations are forerunners of our advancement and glory.

Devotional Readings taken from Puritan Richard Sibbes 'Refreshment for the Soul.'
The Fountain Opened, Works, vol. 5, pp. 530-31
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