Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “The Ultimate Rest“. As I read this lesson, I am not sure what this ultimate rest really is like. For almost all of us, the idea of “rest” has its context in what we now know. Sinners in a world of sin. So our idea of “rest” is couched in the great controversy. And so it is presented to us in this quarterly. We see the mess in the world and the worldliness in our hearts. We experience the struggles in our world, our country, our homes and ourselves. We see “rest” as the absence of those struggles. We have no other experiential frame of reference. Or do we? Is true rest the absence of struggles? Or is it the presence of peace despite the struggles.
This week’s lesson tends to focus on last day events and the future promise of “rest”. But aren’t we told, “As through Jesus we enter into rest, heaven begins here” (Desire of Ages pg. 331). And again, “If we would see heaven, we must have heaven below” (Signs of the Times, July 31, 1893). A future rest is not really “the ultimate rest”, is it?
“Henceforth through the Spirit, Christ was to abide continually in the hearts of His children. Their union with Him was closer than when He was personally with them” (Steps to Christ pg. 75). If this was true in the upper room for the 11, then it is true today for us. The Holy Spirit is closer to us than any Divine bodily presence. So, in a way, “the ultimate rest” begins here on earth. It is now.
I bring this up, not as matter of being contentious or purposely argumentative. It’s just that Christian motivation has been notorious for promoting “pie-in-the-sky, bye-&-bye”. A motivation that places future bliss ahead-of today. And sadly, ahead-of the people who surround us today. If the Christian religion has nothing more to offer than a looking-ahead to the future, than we have truly missed the point of it all. Christ came to serve and to sacrifice His eternal security for us. And in this, Christ rested in His Father. This “giving” is the heavenly rest. The ultimate rest.
If heaven is the ultimate rest. If heaven begins here and now. And the sprit of all those in heaven is one of giving. Then sacrificing ourselves for the good of mankind is the rest. An eternity of eternal retirement is not heaven. An eternity of doing what you please is not rest nor is it heaven. It is hell. Therefore, the heavenly rest, the ultimate rest is ours now even as we love our brothers and sisters. Loving them, especially those who don’t agree with us, seeking to truly bless others is the heavenly rest. The ultimate rest. Loving really is the ultimate rest, even as it is the fulfilling of all law.
I guess we can know what that ultimate rest is, after all. We can experience it now and into forever. If we will. It’s called love.
With brotherly love,
Jim