The Saints' Everlasting Rest - Richard Baxter

earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a
house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." Why do we then look no
oftener towards it, and "groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our
house which is from heaven?" If our home were far meaner, surely we
should remember it, because it is our home. If you were but banished into a
strange land, how frequently would your thoughts be at home! And why is it
not thus with us in respect to heaven? Is not that more truly and properly our
home, where we must take up our everlasting abode, than this, which we are
every hour expecting to be separated from, and to see no more? We are
strangers, and that is our country. We are heirs, and that is our inheritance;
even "an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled; and that fadeth not away,
reserved in heaven for us." We are here in continual distress and want, and
there lies our substance; even "a better and an enduring substance." Yea, the
very hope of our souls is there; all our hope of relief from our distresses; all
our hope of happiness, when here we are miserable; all this "hope is laid up
for us in heaven." Why, beloved Christians, have we so much interest, and so
few thoughts there? so near relation, and so little affection? Doth it become
us to be delighted in the company of strangers, so as to forget our Father and
our Lord? or to be so well pleased with those that hate and grieve us, as to
forget our best and dearest friends; or to be so fond of borrowed trifles, as to
forget our eternal joy and rest? God usually pleads his property in us; and
thence concludes he will do us good, even because we are his people, whom
he hath chosen out of all the world. Why then do we not plead our interest in
him, and so raise our hearts above; even because he is our God, and because
the place is our own possession? Men commonly overlove and overvalue
their own things, and mind them too much. O that we could mind our own
inheritance, and value it half as much as it deserves.
12. Once more consider, there is nothing but heaven worth setting our
hearts upon. If God have them not, who shall? If thou mind not thy rest, what
wilt thou mind? Hast thou found out some other god; or something that will
serve thee instead of rest? Hast thou found on earth an eternal happiness?
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