Christian: Ultimately it is well. I still hunger for a greater experience of God's grace in my life.
Friend: Still don't feel at rest?
Christian: Not fully. Growing in confession and bringing my worries to God has been awesome. It has taught me to learn to rest by faith in his forgiveness and in his sovereign care. And it increases my appetite for more of that rest. When I hear Jesus say "Come to me and I will give you rest," my heart reaches for more of that.
Friend: Yeah, mine too.
Christian: I wonder what that coming to him looks like? Any other ideas?
Friend: It is super important that we always remember that it is by faith. We find his rest not by working enough for it, but by resting in him. But because our hearts are restless we have to learn to rest in Christ. We learn to trust him.
Christian: Yeah. I have found rest in Christ, and yet my heart grows restless again.
Friend: Like the Psalters say, the road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but the road to heaven is not paved. It is an uphill climb. Think for a minute with me. What else leads you to unrest?
Christian: Oh, that is a good question. I guess, sometimes I feel like I am always looking for something. Kind of like I am hungry but food doesn't really help, homesick at home, and so I restlessly look for completion.
Friend: There is a lot there. That statement might take a few conversations to explore.
Christian: Okay.
Friend: Well, for starters, that is how sin works; always hungry never satisfied. Always looking, never finding. Always working, never resting.
Christian: Yeah, always winter, never Christmas.
Friend: Always winter. It is really obvious with some sins. Take lust for example. Lust refuses to be satisfied with the beautiful thing right in front of it. It always wants more.
Christian: Yeah, it leads from one kink to the next till water won't even come through the hose.
Friend: Right. Or greed and covetousness. Always wanting a little more, always longing for what someone else has. Even if you get it, your eye moves to the next thing.
Christian: It's true.
Friend: You can do it with religion or spirituality too. One more rule kept, one more service attended, and then I will be satisfied. One more spiritual experience, one more hour of solitude and I will reach it. One more mountain climbed, blog read, vacation taken, opponent disproven, Netflix binge completed, one more drink consumed, promotion won, friend made, pound lost...but it is chasing the wind.
Christian: You describe my symptoms well, but what I need is a cure.
Friend: Haha. Truly. Jesus is the cure. Faith in him. Believing that it is finished. And it is. The thing you are striving for by lust, by covetousness, by religion, you can't get to it. It is too far to reach by either path.
Christian: It is.
Friend: That is a necessary truth to come to. And that is why Christmas came. Jesus was made man to get the blessing for you, he got the rest to give it to us. And to do it, he had to swallow the curse. At the end of his day was no happy rest. But because of that, it is finished.
Christian: I know this, I have believed it to become a Christian.
Friend: You have. And you need to believe it again today. You need to believe it enough to rest in Jesus now.
Christian: Yeah. When I am restlessly searching for something, I am not resting in the everything that is promised to me in Jesus.
Friend: Right. Stop looking for it in sin. It isn't there. In the words of Jesus and the prophets, repent.
Christian: It really isn't there, but why do I keep looking?
Friend: That is sin and death at work in your heart. Always promising, never delivering. But Jesus promises and delivers. And you can rest in that by faith in repentance now.
Christian: That's why Martin Luther said repentance is a daily thing.
Friend: It is. And somehow we have come to think of it as an ugly word, a monstrous thing. But repentance is beautiful. It is refusing to drink the poison. It is sitting down to breakfast on the beach instead of running from the sunrise.
Christian: It is coming to Christ to find rest.
Friend: Exactly. So repent daily. Believe that Jesus' work for you is enough today. Rest from your lust. Rest from your covetousness. Rest from your endless religious pursuit.
Christian: That sounds perfect. So the road to heaven is paved after all.
Friend: Oh. It most certainly is not. The rest now comes in the middle of tears. It comes alongside the hardship. It comes with affliction. It is an appetizer of the feast to come. And the perfect rest is coming for all those who rest in Jesus now.
Christian: It is.
Friend: That is for another day. Today remember what the prophet said:
"In repentance and rest you shall be saved;
In quietness and in trust shall be your strength."*
*Isaiah 30:15
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