Heavenly Promise: The Joy of Perfect Rest

One reality that every Christian faces on this side of heaven is our various limitations. We desire to love the Lord more, live wholly for him, become more like him, serve him more, rejoice in him more, and the list is endless. But sadly we are unable because sin limits us. However, in glory, we will be able to love the Lord with the incorruptible love, live wholly for him, and praise and serve him forever. I was reminded on this truth as I read Charles Huddon Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening devotions. In his devotional entry of the evening of January 18 taken from Hebrews 4:9, “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God,” Spurgeon writes,

How different will be the state of the believer in heaven from what it is here! Here he is born to toil and suffer weariness, but in the land of the immortal, fatigue is never known. Anxious to serve his Master, he finds his strength unequal to his zeal: his constant cry is, “Help me to serve you, O my God.” If he be thoroughly active, he will have much labour; not too much for his will, but more than enough for his power, so that he will cry out, “I am not wearied of the labour, but I am wearied in it.” Ah! Christian, the hot day of weariness lasts not forever; the sun is nearing the horizon; it shall rise again with a brighter day than you have ever seen upon a land where they serve God day and night, and yet rest from their labours. Here, rest is but partial, there, it is perfect. Here, the Christian is always unsettled; he feels that he has not yet attained. There, all are at rest; they have attained the summit of the mountain; they have ascended to the bosom of their God. Higher they cannot go. Ah, toil-worn labourer, only think when you shall rest forever! Can you conceive it? It is a rest eternal; a rest that “remains.