It's been more than enough for me.
After a rather rough weekend, Monday hit hard, the kind of hard that keeps you on your knees...which is painful and productive, all at the same time.
With my girls down for nap Monday afternoon (which we might as well call, "down for chatter and giggles") I wearily pulled out my Bible and sank down at my desk, not even able to make a happy cup of coffee first or put on some sweet music. Just His Word.
I was on Hebrews 3, and read through it hungry. As I finished chapter 3, chapter 4 called me onward...with a title that popped off the page at my fatigue...
Entering God's Rest.
uh, ENTERING. Give it to me!
The study of this chapter has consumed my week, will be my message in chapel on Friday, and has produced so much fruit in my own life these past few days...let me practice for chapel on you...and maybe entering God's rest sounds like a really needed thing for you, too.
Let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to come short of it....therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest.
Upon first reading this I thought surely this must just be talking about heaven, about future rest. Which is comforting...but not really ENTERING His much needed rest TODAY...and yet in the same verses, it says, "It remains for some to enter, and He again fixes a certain day, TODAY."
Just reading "today" brought tears to my eyes.
JUST as His kingdom is both here and now, and also not yet, after studying this passage this week, I believe His rest is both for today AND to come. His rest has already come, AND it is not finished yet. We might receive it now...with hope for receiving it in heaven.
By faith, we must continue to strive for this rest--the promise of the end of our struggles in this life, but also, I believe His future rest touches TODAY.
Though future rest is indeed future, there is an urgency here. His offer of rest must be seized today, because there is coming a tomorrow which will be too late. I also have come to realize that His rest is something we dwell in one day at a time. It's not something that happens for a moment, but something we believe in and receive, abide in, day after day.
Hebrews 4 keeps talking about how We have had good news preached to us, just as they also, but the Word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heart.
The "WE" here is the church today, the "they" God's people of Israel from the exodus. Both of us have had the good news preached to us...
The people of the exodus had deliverance from captivity preached to them, a covenant with God preached to them, the hope of the Promised Land preached to them.
Sounds an awful lot like the "good news" we have today!
Deliverance from bondage, the good news He has given us. A NEW covenant, He is offering us. Hope of the promised land in the future!
And yet, we must be warned here.
Both we and they have been given this good news. Both of us are called to respond in faith. And our forefathers, though experiencing His deliverance out of Egypt, DID NOT. They missed it. Instead of responding in faith and community, they missed the blessing of REST.
They did NOT rely on their God, they did NOT cease from worry, they did NOT live in the covenant, and they did NOT enter that sweet promised land. 99.99999% of them.
They did not respond in faith.
Therefore, let us be diligent to enter that rest! Hebrews 4 says, with our forefathers as our example.
Hebrews is the faith book, is it not? TODAY we have the possibility of entering into His rest even now AND entering into end time rest. Those who enter God's rest do so by faith.
What IS God's rest? In verse nine, Hebrews 4 says So there remains a Sabbath Rest for the people of God, just as God rested on the 7th day from all His works.
What WAS God's rest exactly? How was it that He rested?
He rested in the recognition of His work in creation as being complete. It was finished. He rested.
So what is the Christians rest, today? How is it that we can rest?
We can rest in the recognition that's Christ's work of redeeming us from sin is COMPLETE. While His work in us is not done, His redeeming work is FINISHED. Not by our own anything. We can rest.
As I've studied, there seems to be three types of rest available to us as Christ-followers.
There is salvation rest: rest from our efforts to earn God's favor. We cannot, we will not.
WHAT of my efforts, struggles and fatigue today is because of my efforts to earn God's favor? Which Jesus, and Jesus alone, already earned for me, VOID of ANYTHING I can do. Salvation rest.
There is eternal rest: the promise of an eternity in His presence with no more crying and no more pain. No. More. Broken. Ahhhh.
There is sanctification rest: rest from striving in the power of our flesh to be godly.
He offers, He asks, He demands that we live in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit who raised DEAD Jesus. That we live in that resting and abiding in the HOLY SPIRIT, NOT in our flesh. Resting, knowing that He who holds victory over death is able to be victorious through me.
This resting and abiding in Him must be the key to fruitfulness in our lives and ministries.
The one who has entered God's rest is one who has set aside striving in the flesh and has trusted in the work God has finished.
REST.
What does that look like?
The Christian's rest we have available to us is a ceasing from spiritual striving that reflects uncertainty about the future...one that shows enjoyment of being established in His presence, one that shares in the joy God entered in when He rested on the 7th day.
Today, are we living in that rest?
As I thought about this, it brought such new meaning to Matthew 11 when He says, "Come, all who are weary, and I will give you rest."
If I am tired today, is it because I have been living relying and striving on my own strength? Relying on myself to earn, relying on myself to be Godly, relying on myself to be faithful?
Every second I've had with the Lord this week, I've been deliberately trying to CEASE my own labors and efforts and instead sit and receive the fruit of the work that JESUS has done.
Our forefathers did not persevere in Him. The sin of the faithless exodus generation was disobedience, the opposite of persevering in Christ.
I do not believe that God desires to leave us to trust in the futile, pointless work of our fresh, but wants us to rest in HIM...and it is possible today.
Let us rest in Him who has done ALL the work for our salvation, for our sanctification, and for our eternal rest.
Draw near with confidence
to the throne of grace
receiving mercy
and finding grace
to help in time of need.
Hebrews 4:16
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