Daily Devotionals

Devotional: June 9th

REST AND RULE

Blessed is that servant whom, when his Lord cometh He shall find so doing. Verity, I say unto you. That He shall set him over all that He hath. - Matthew 24:46-47

Verily I say unto you, He shall "gird Himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them." I do not know that there is a more wonderful promise, with more light lying in its darkness, in all Scripture than that. Jesus Christ continues in the heavens to be found in " the form of a servant." As here He girded Himself with the towel of humiliation in the upper room, so there He girds Himself with the robes of His Imperial Majesty, and uses all His powers for the nourishment and blessedness of His servants. His everlasting motto is, " I am among you as one that serveth." On earth His service was to wash His disciples’ feet; in heaven the pure foot contracts no stain and needs no basin. But in heaven He still serves, and serves by spreading a table, and, as a king might do at some ceremonial feasts, waiting on the astonished guests. Repose, in contrast with the girded loins and the weary waiting of the midnight watch; nourishment and the satisfaction of all desires; joy; society, - all these things, and who knows how much more, that we shall have to get there to understand, he in that metaphor, "Blessed is that servant " who is served by the Master and nourished by His presence. It is a wonderful confession of " the weariness, the fever, and the fret," the hunger and loneliness of earthly experience, that the thought of heaven as the opposite of all these things should have almost swallowed up the other thought with which our Lord associates it here. He would not have us think only of repose. He unites with that representation, so fascinating to us weary and heavy-laden, the other of administrative authority. He will set him "over all that He hath." The relation between earthly faithfulness and heavenly service is the same in essence as that between the various stages of our work here. The reward for work here is more work; a wider field, greater capacities. And what depths of authority, of new dignity, of royal supremacy, lie in these solemn and mysterious words I know not: " He will set him over all that He hath." My union with Christ is to be so close as that all His is mine; and I am master of it. But at all events this we can say, that the faithfulness here leads to larger service yonder; and that none of the aptitudes and capacities which have been developed in us here on earth will want a sphere when we pass yonder.

So let watchfulness lead to faithfulness, and watchful faithfulness and faithful watchfulness will lead to repose which is activity, and rule which is rest.

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