S26P9 – Our future in Christ: rested
Heb. 4:10-11
For the one who has once entered His rest has also rested from his labors, just as God rested from His own. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following the same example of disobedience.
You arrive home after a long day of work, and you let out a big sigh and plop yourself down on your couch. The day of work is done, and you have the evening to yourself. It is not yet time to go to sleep, but it certainly is time for some rest. The physical world we live in requires that we get regular rest. We have no choice; it is a necessity of life. Spiritually, we also require rest. As we go through life in this order of things God is our spiritual rest. He is the power nap that gets us through the afternoon. He is the good night’s sleep that we need to be productive and alert tomorrow. There is much work to be done in the Spirit, and we must be rested to do so. But one day this cycle of tiredness and rest will cease. In the future, we will enter into an eternity of rest in God in which no one will grow weary.
When the new heavens and the new Earth come, God will illuminate every shadow that we see today. The reason we need physical and spiritual rest in this life is because this life is not perfect. We live in a cycle of getting energy and using energy. The same way one meal will not satisfy us for a lifetime, neither will one night’s rest or one prayer to our heavenly Father. We are constantly in need of a refilling of physical and spiritual energy. The state of rest that God has waiting for us in the life to come is not a state of sleep. It is a state of always being rested, meaning that our energy stores will always be full. No one will be searching for a place to lay their head. God’s mere presence before us will provide all of the energy we need to be always well rested. God’s perfect rest is a perpetual state of never actually needing rest.
Resting in the Lord is nothing more than being well-rested in him. This means that we allow him to fill us so that we can keep moving forward. He promises that one day we will be full to overflowing for eternity with no break and no pause. We will overflow with the power of his presence and never need to shut our eyes and catch a few z’s. God will sustain us in his eternal kingdom. He will be our light, our food, our drink and our rest. And as we rest in his eternal presence, our cups will always be full. Father, thank You that You give us rest when we are weary in this life, and thank You for the promise of eternal rest in your presence in the next life.