Enter HIS Rest


In YouVersion’s devotional series, Finding Rest (Day 1/5) titled Make Rest Your Friend the author writes:

“By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” – Genesis 2:2-3 NASB1995

““Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”” – Matthew 11:28-30 NASB1995

Rest—to relax, pause, breathe, and be at ease.”

“Rest is a gift that we too easily tend to push aside. But life without rest is not sustainable. Rest refreshes our bodies, giving us the energy we need to honor God and to love others. Learning to practice rest is a spiritual discipline that helps you enjoy God’s presence and realign your priorities.

“God Himself modeled rest for us from the very beginning. Immediately after He finished creating the universe—and everything in it—he gave Himself a day to look back on the goodness of all the work that He had just completed.”

This is us, entering into rest from our works in the likeness of God’s example to us. I have practiced this rest for many years. But this morning God showed me something, revealing to me that, this personal practice of resting falls short of the call of God for our deepest, most vital rest. The call of God is. . .

“Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as when they provoked Me, As in the day of trial in the wilderness, Where your fathers tried Me by testing Me, And saw My works for forty years. Therefore I was angry with this generation, And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, And they did not know My ways’; As I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ” …So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief.

“Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. For indeed 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 heard. For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said, “As I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter My rest,” although His works were finished from the foundation of the world.

“…Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience, He again fixes a certain day, “Today,” saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before, “Today if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts.” For if Joshua had given them rest, He would not have spoken of another day after that. So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.” – Hebrews 3:7-11, 19, 4:1-3, 6-11 NASB1995

This is what Father showed me today: our calling is not simply to rest from our works, but to enter into His rest with Him. I’ve always looked at it in this way YouVersion expresses it, as me, trying to rest in likeness to Him. He finished His work list then sat back to enjoy the produce of His hands.

But us entering His rest with Him is deeper and less “me” than that. He rested because He knew His work was finished “from the foundation of time” and it was good. We enter His rest when we join Him there, rested in the fact that God is finished, and always finishes His work, and His work is always revealed to be good. We enter His rest trusting His finished work, though we can’t see it yet, and earnestly anticipating the last word from Him: “and He saw that it was all good.”

Trust Him. Believe Him. Follow Him in obedience out of faith’s trusting belief. The whole while entering His rest with Him knowing He will not fail to finish the good work He started in and through you.

“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 1:6 NASB1995

Cooperate with God, and be at rest in His finished product.

One thought on “Enter HIS Rest”

  1. Well said. Amen.

    Jesus said it is finished. Everything is ours by faith.
    Let us always walk in the Victory that has been won for us.
    The deceiver doesn’t want us to know we are Kings and Priests of the Lord.

    Our true identity in Christ.

    Oh death where is your sting ?

    Thank you and God bless you richly.

    Liked by 1 person

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