Weary Christian, Set Your Mind On Things Above

Most American professing Christians (85 percent) believe in heaven, according to Pew’s Religious Landscape Study in 2024. But how often do they think about heaven? Not often, if a survey of popular hymns and Christian songs is an indication. We’re made for heaven, but it’s so easy to settle for earth. Paul calls us to set our “minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Col 3:2). How can we learn to do that?

Richard Baxter, an English Puritan, wrestled with the same question nearly 400 years ago. He began writing perhaps one of the best books on heaven, The Saints’ Everlasting Rest, as a 31-year-old pastor.

When Baxter penned this book, he was in poor health. He thought he was writing his funeral sermon, as “a man who was between living and dead” (19). That crisis encouraged him to meditate on Hebrews 4:9: “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.” It led him to wonder, “Why, beloved Christians, do we have so much interest in earth and so few thoughts of heaven?” (103). This book is an extended answer to that ever-relevant question.

Life was hard for Baxter’s original audience. England was in civil war and the king had been executed. Puritans had been persecuted for years, a situation that would continue until the Act of Toleration was signed decades later. With countless trials below, they needed hope from above. Most of us don’t face those same sorrows. However, trials will come. No one escapes this veil of tears without suffering. Baxter’s meditations on heaven encourage believers to have hope on earth.

Hope in Heavenly Rest

According to Baxter, our heavenly rest won’t be a place of prayer, for all our prayers will have been answered. It won’t be a place of sacraments, because signs will have given way to reality. It won’t be a place of sin, for all our sins will have been forgotten. Nor will it be a place of suffering, for we will have been glorified. Heaven will be a place of perfect rest, a release from the troubles of this world.

This book’s power comes from its roots in Baxter’s suffering. He writes, “The prospect of rest is indeed acceptable to one like myself, who, in the last ten or twelve years, has barely had a whole day free from some pain or discomfort. Oh, the weary nights and days!” (68). But true rest is more than freedom from sin’s effects; it’s freedom from sin itself. Baxter asks, “Will he leave us sinning, suffering, groaning, dying daily, and come no more to us? It cannot be! Never fear: it cannot be” (44). On Christ’s return, the darkness will give way to light.

True rest is more than freedom from sin’s effects; it’s freedom from sin itself.

Our hope for heavenly rest comes because of Christ’s work. As Baxter reminds us, it’s a gift we couldn’t earn. “So then, let Deserved be written on the door of hell,” he writes, “but on the door of heaven and life itself, The Free Gift” (55). We deserve hell, but God freely gives us heaven. Through Christ, we’ll have perfect love, fullness of joy, and never-ending communion with God himself.

Our heavenly communion with God won’t be a return to Eden but a perfection of it. “Our first and earthly paradise in Eden had a way out but no way back in that we could find,” Baxter writes. “This eternal paradise has a way in but no way out again. It is the saints’ everlasting rest” (61).

Keep Your Heart Set on Heaven

It’s not enough, however, to simply read Baxter’s book and go on with our lives. He urges us to think about our heavenly rest regularly. “Make such contemplations a habitual practice,” he writes. “Do not let those thoughts be seldom and cursory. Settle on them, dwell in them, bathe your soul in heaven’s delights, drench your affections in these rivers of pleasure—or rather in this sea of consolation” (96).

It’s little wonder we think so little of heaven, though. Our lives are generally comfortable, especially by historical standards. We can numb the uneasy feelings we experience by endlessly scrolling. We have modern medicine that dulls our pain and protects us from encountering death as often as generations before. Many of us go days or even weeks without longing for our heavenly rest. We’re too often satisfied with this world’s goods.

That’s why Baxter urges readers to continually marvel at the wonders of heaven. “Reader, take your heart once again and lead it by the hand,” he writes. “Bring it to the top of the highest mountain. Show it the kingdom of Christ and the glory of it. Say to your heart, ‘All this will your Lord bestow on you. It is the Father’s good pleasure to give you this kingdom’” (137).

Key to keeping our hearts set on heaven is preaching to ourselves. Baxter argues, “Every good Christian is a good preacher to his own soul” (150). Amid temptations, fears, and distractions that pull our eyes away from heaven, we have to continually remind ourselves of the truth and cultivate our longing to be in God’s presence.

Enduring Classic

The Saints’ Everlasting Rest was published in 1650. By 1659, there were eight editions. By 1688, there were twelve. If Baxter’s marathon reflection on heaven were published today, it’d top the bestseller charts. Yet it’s book is unfamiliar to many modern Christians.

We have to continually remind ourselves of the truth and cultivate our longing to be in God’s presence.

That’s not too surprising, because the first edition was more than 850 pages and around 350,000 words. The book’s bulk has kept it from being popular among modern readers. Thankfully, historian Tim Cooper has distilled the heart of Baxter’s message into just under 200 pages.

The abridged edition of this classic is a powerful antidote to this-worldly focus. It could be read in just a few hours. But it pays to digest this book slowly. I’ve benefited by reading a few pages a day along with Scripture as part of my daily devotions. The Saints’ Everlasting Rest should be standard reading for Christians pursuing a heavenward focus in a distracted world.