Daily Devotion

 

The Christian has entered into a great inheritance.  Here is a word with a great history, for it is regularly used in the Greek Old Testament for the inheritance of Canaan, the promised Land.  Again and again, the Old Testament speaks of the land which God has given His people for an inheritance to possess (Deuteronomy 15:4; 19:10).  To us, inheritance tends to mean something that we will possess in the future.  As the Bible uses this word, it rather means a secure possession.  To the Jew, the great settled possession was the Promised Land.

 

But the Christian inheritance is even greater.  Peter uses three words with three great pictures behind them to describe it.  It is imperishable.  The word does mean imperishable, but it can also mean unravaged by an invading army.  Many a time, Palestine has been ravaged by the armies of the aliens; it has been fought over and blasted and destroyed.  But the Christian possesses a peace and a joy, that no invading army can ravage and destroy.  It is undefilable.  The word means "to pollute with impious impurity."  Many and many a time, Palestine has been rendered impure by false worship of false gods.  The defiling things had often left their touch even on the Promised Land, but the Christian has a purity that the sin of the world cannot infect. In the Promised Land, as in any land, even the loveliest flower fades and the loveliest blossom dies.  But the Christian is lifted into a world where there is no change and decay and where his peace and joy are untouched by the chances and the changes of life.