We will be glad and rejoice in you! We will not open the gates of this new year with mournful dirges, but with the sweet strains of joy's harp and the high-sounding cymbals of gladness. "O come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!"

We, the called and faithful and chosen—we will drive away our griefs and set up our banners of confidence in the name of God. Let others lament over their troubles. We who have the sweetening tree to cast into Marah's bitter pool will magnify the Lord with joy!

Eternal Spirit, our effectual Comforter, we who are the temples where you dwell will never cease from adoring and blessing the name of Jesus. We will—we are resolved about it—Jesus must have the crown of our heart's delight! We will not dishonor our Bridegroom by mourning in his presence.

We are ordained to be the minstrels of the skies! Let us rehearse our everlasting anthem before we sing it in the halls of the New Jerusalem. We will be glad AND rejoice—two words with one sense, double joy, blessedness upon blessedness!

Need there be any limit to our rejoicing in the Lord even now? Do not men of grace find their Lord to be like precious spices—camphire and spikenard, calamus and cinnamon—even now? And what better fragrance have they in heaven itself? We will be glad and rejoice in YOU.

That last word—YOU—is the meat in the dish, the kernel of the nut, the soul of the text. What heavens are laid up in Jesus! What rivers of infinite bliss have their source—yes, and every drop of their fullness—in him!

Since, O sweet Lord Jesus, you are the present portion of your people, favor us this year with such a sense of your preciousness that from its first to its last day we may be glad and rejoice in you. Let January open with joy in the Lord, and December close with gladness in Jesus.