The Great Business of Life is Settled
The rest that Christ gives is an inward and spiritual thing. It is rest of heart, rest of conscience, rest of mind, rest of affection, rest of will. It is rest, from a comfortable sense of sins being all forgiven and guilt all put away. It is rest, from a solid hope of good things to come, laid up beyond the reach of disease, death and the grave. It is rest, from the well-grounded feeling, that the great business of life is settled, its great end provided for, that in time all is well done, and in eternity heaven will be our home. – JC RYLE
The clamor of man in his quest for meaning echos throughout the world with each new day’s rising sun. Consumed with a longing for purpose and a never-relenting pursuit of riches, success, knowledge and admiration, he has become anesthetized to the unrest inside him. A hunger for ultimate joy eats away at his insides, while he fills his stomach full of the chaff of worldly pleasures.
Where is the peace that all this seeking and pursuing looks for? Where is a happiness that is greater than this fleeting physical sensation? Man searches out the wide plains of materialism and the dark corners of his reason for any trace of solidity in purpose. Knowledge, fame, power and money have unmercifully sent every owner to the grave empty and unfulfilled. Yet still we chase them.
Man is created with a longing and desire that nothing on this earth can satisfy and quench. You and I were created to love and live for the God who made us in his likeness, who calls us to righteousness so that we may be trophies of grace, light in darkness, and salt to the decay of our society. We are called to reflect his glory as vessels of mercy. Everything else will fail to bring peace and eternal joy. But there is hope, and it is found only in the person and work of Jesus Christ, through whom we have redemption, forgiveness of sins, and justification in the court of God’s infinite justice.
The great business of life has been settled. Every one of us is seeking happiness in something temporal, something that will rust or weaken or fade, and when it does we will feel our finitude all over again and be left wanting, thirsty, hungry for meaning. Seek comfort in the gospel of Christ, and find rest for your weary souls.
