What will we be doing in heaven? Won't it get boring if we are there forever?

This spontaneous, free and full-hearted worship settles the great question of what is the occupation of heaven? What is heaven? Is it the street of gold? the river of water of life? the magnificence of the place? These are the outward display, the outward accompaniments of heaven. What is it that makes heaven actually that? In one word, it is that "God and the Lamb" are there. It is access to God visibly, which now is only by faith. What is the occupation of heaven? Joy and praise, surely, and a place for service as well. All our ransomed powers will be happily employed there. Perfect intelligence as well as perfect bodies will be fully in exercise. But what is it that gives fragrance to all there — that makes heaven the place of unsullied, unspeakable delight? It is that worship permeates it all. We still serve, and shall worship as we serve. We shall have communion and intercourse with one another, but all that will simply lead to fresh delight and worship — not a distraction to turn from one occupation to another, but all rendered fragrant by the sweet savor of Christ unceasingly.

Again, the idea man has of rest is a state of indolence, and the reason of this is because mental and bodily fatigue cry out for cessation of labour, and that on account of our present fallen and feeble condition. It is not pleasant to us to look forward to an eternity of ceaseless activity, for a third of our life seems necessary for the recuperation of our wasted energies. But no sense of weariness shall ever enter the bodies of the glorified. Toil shall have for ever come to an end, an endless day of the activities of divine love is all the employment in which we shall be engaged, and there shall be no night during which these activities shall be quiescent. Here we accomplish as hirelings our day, but— “There only to adore My soul its strength may find, Its life, its joy for evermore, By sight nor sense defined.”

— “His servants shall serve Him.” God and the Lamb are so united in thought and action that the personal pronoun is here employed. God will be revealed in the Lamb; we shall serve Him. Ours will be a service without cessation, without weariness, without flagging energy. In joy and freedom our service then will be one of pure love; without a flaw, and without one legal thought. How varied the character of service! How gladly the whole being enters upon an eternal life of service to Him!

We shall share for ever God's joy in His beloved Son, and that upon which He feeds, if I may say it reverently, on that we shall also feed. We shall share God's thoughts of Christ, and this will yield us joy and satisfaction for ever.

And, then, there is to be no more curse, — God and the Lamb shall be in it. The Lamb bore the curse. Thorns the earth was to bring forth, as the product of the curse, and thorns were placed upon His sacred brow. He bore the curse that He might remove it. And His servants shall serve Him — they shall see His face and His name shall be in their foreheads. What a prospect! Especially for those of us who feel how feeble our service here is! But there His servants shall serve Him. Love cannot be satisfied unless it is serving, and the Lord will give His servants the joy and opportunity of serving Him in all the power of the Holy Ghost — without any faltering or failure.

The overwhelming greatness of these works of God are such that eternities could not exhaust the joy of the creature who might be enabled to visit them and study their wonders. Yet even should this be possible, what would journeys from star to star and sun to sun be? Simply research into the Creator's works. The child of God has a far nobler portion; he has for his eternity fellowship with the Father and the Son, communion with God in what God is as made known. Those heights, those depths, those lengths and breadths of what God is, who shall declare them? An expanse of eternal occupation and joy opens out before the astonished soul. It is not merely a seat in heaven, a place amongst the glories; not simply a song to sing which knows no ending, a harp to strike which shall never be unstrung; but having the eternal life, and having like thoughts, and feelings, and common objects with God the Father, and God the Son, by the indwelling Spirit.

In its full enjoyment, the eternal life will be knowing the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He sent to this world. The child of God will enter into the divine mind by the Spirit, he will think with purest joy like thoughts with God, travel on from wonder to wonder, learn greater depths by every fresh marvel learned; never wearied, never sated, ever satisfied. What a portion awaits the possessor of the new life! The fullest joy in the unclouded love of God is his prospect, dwelling in the blaze of the light of what God is, possessing the eternal life.

That transient scene of coming glory witnessed upon the mount of Transfiguration, indicates the holy friendships and sweet companionships of heaven. Communion with Jesus will be then our joy. The crowns of rejoicing composed of glorified saints who on earth were brought to God by the servants' means, await the weary worker of this hour; the holy fellowship of men and women, who followed Christ on earth, will then be resumed, never more to be broken. Weakness of body will soon have passed, flagging of mind will soon never more be known; and instead, for ever and for ever, fresh gladness, fresh songs, fresh sights of Jesus', fresh knowledge of the Father.

Then, after thus inspecting our title and our resources, I may just say as to the joy itself, the character of it will be worthy of its Giver, and will utter itself, as we find in these Psalms, in a loud noise, as from overflowing hearts, in all kinds of music. And joy of such rare quality this will be, that it will never satiate, never weary, never end, but still begin with more than earliest freshness.

But our Saviour, the Son, here speaks of something outside and above human experience. We are here introduced to eternal life, the life of God. And the leaves of the Tree of Life in the new creation are never-endingly renewed; they are perennially fresh; there is nothing which can ever pall in the home of life, the Father's house.

We shall live with Him! What a volume is in those words “with Him”! To be with Him is the sum and substance of all our blessedness, for He is with the Father, and this, for Him, is the blessedness of heaven, as it will be ours to be with Him there. Pleasures for evermore, joys unceasing and ever increasing will be ours, but He is better than all the joys; the true delight of heaven is Jesus. The Son of the Father will introduce the many sons into the intimacies of the circle in which He now moves and dwells; we shall live together with Him, see Him as He is, gaze upon His face, listen to His voice in the fair realms of God’s paradise, spend eternity in His company; for the life we have is

We are not told what the positive delights of that place are, save the highest of all—God in fullest harmony with His creatures, and the creature in fullest harmony with God, and that on new creation lines, all based in righteousness on the ground of the redemptive work of Christ.