Normally the lad whines about bed time. He still has energy left in the tank and wants to fight for every moment of wakened life that he can. But on this particular day he happily collapses into his bed at 7:30pm. Why? Because he has spent the entire day doing manual labor which has left him exhausted.
Do you long for heaven?
I know that we know we are supposed to say we are longing for heaven, but do you really? My longing for heaven is a bit like a little boy who cannot wait for a trip to the ballpark to see his favorite baseball team. I’m excited about meeting Jesus. I’m thrilled to see what heaven is like and to experience the mind-blowing joy that God has for me. And I suppose all of that is a very good longing. But I think it’s a bit different than the longing which the apostles felt.
The longing of the early disciples seems to be not only a longing to meet Jesus but also like the deep longing of a tired man for his bed at night. They were as Keith Green described them, “Holy tireless men. Who spilled their blood for Thee”. They were spent. They fought the good fight.
And I’m really not talking about ministry here. Part of the reason I think we aren’t longing for heaven as much (or in the way) which we ought is because we aren’t laboring against sin as we should be.
I’ve been going through John Owen’s Mortification of Sin with a friend. We were discussing how absolutely tiring much of this sounds. Consider this quote:
When sin lets us alone we may let sin alone; but as sin is never less quiet than when it seems to be most quiet, and its waters are for the most part deep when they are still, so ought our contrivances against it to be vigorous at all times and in all conditions, even where there is least suspicion.
In other words, you and I do not get a day of rest in our battle against sin. Yes, Christ has conquered sin. Yes, we are battling a defeated enemy. But it is also true that if we do not continuously fight sin it will kill. “Kill sin or it will kill you”. That’s exhausting. That’s not getting a moment of rest. That is a life filled with struggle and labor and fighting and warring and vigorous activity.
But that’s part of the point. That’s part of what creates in us a deep desire for heaven…for rest. Rest doesn’t sound as amazing if your day is filled with eating bonbons and playing Super Mario Brothers. If our time on this world is spent with half-way dedication to the Lord and half dedication to fulfilling (instead of fighting) the lust of the flesh, we aren’t going to see rest as all that attractive. We’ve settled for a cheap rest in our worldly trifles. And so we don’t rightly long for that eternal rest. We aren’t actually spent so we fight against bed time.
I remember a former coach yelling at a group of us players messing around after practice. We were engaged in some stupid and jovial teenage activity. He concluded that he wasn’t running us hard enough. If we still had energy to screw around after practice then we must not have left everything on the field.
How much different would our longings be if we were actively engaged in this war? What does our longing for heaven (or perhaps lack thereof) tells us about whether or not we are actually engaged in spiritual warfare? Maybe we’re just passive spectators.
I’ve always been inspired by this:
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Photo source: here
I think you led me to some new music!! I loved the video. Great article as well, thank you!