Day 217, Hebrews 4
Chapter 3 ended with a call to walk in wholehearted obedience, living at rest, trusting God with soft hearts. Today, we dig deeper into this faith-rest life. It is so contrary to the ways of this world that we would do well to embrace the instructions in this chapter.
Firstly, we see that doubt will steal this gift from us. Faith is not effort to force ourselves to believe, it is allowing ourselves to be persuaded by what we hear from God, so that His truth becomes our foundation.
Referring back to creation, the writer reminds us that God entered into rest on the seventh day, which was humanity’s first day of existence - we were created to rest with God. The obstacle preventing this is our hardness of heart - a process we can reverse if we so choose.
In Israel’s history, there was rest when they entered the Promised Land with Joshua, yet that was not the fulfillment of God’s promise, because they failed to take God’s Word to heart and eventually were evicted from the land of promise. So there is a rest awaiting those who will enter into God’s promise through Jesus. It is a rest of ceasing from our own works. (Read that again).
God has finished His work. On the seventh day He rested from His creation. On the cross He declared “it is finished.” On the last day (when time ends and eternity remains) He declares “I am the beginning and the end” (the Alpha and Omega).
When we let go of our working to earn favor with God, we find we have stepped into our destiny with Him. When we accept the free gift of life in Christ, we no longer have anything to prove by our effort.
THAT is good news. It is also harder than it sounds - we are all hard-hearted orphan-slaves until the redemption Jesus has released completes its work in our hearts.
That is why the advice of the last three verses of the chapter is so crucial: we have a king-priest who knows all our frailty and hard-heartedness. Diving into the depths of mercy and grace is our only hope of victory over the forces that would steal our rest.
Have a great day!
Mark.