How do we labor to enter His rest?
The word tells us that the kingdom of God suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. They seize it. Have you ever noticed that the people who received miracles from Jesus were very desperate? They pushed through crowds, threw off their cloaks, risked humiliation, and many cried out above the din of voices literally stopping Jesus in his tracks. Oh, he loves desperate sick folks.
God's love is all-consuming. His love is compared to a mighty rushing river and unquenchable fire. He have given everything for love, and He seeks the same love in return. Many false teachings are perverting the truth that Jesus has done it all, (He has) and won it all, (He has) to cause us to sit back in a spiritual stupor while Satan makes off with all of our inheritance. Jesus purchased our rest, but we must labor to enter into it.
Jesus said that we have to eat his body and drink his blood in order to experience eternal life. As we do when celebrating communion, we have to pick it up and chew it. The way that we chew is to meditate and study his word with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength. We seek Him with 100% of our focus, a focus that is only born our of desperation.
It's hard to feed someone who is full. Too often we pursue God and His promises with half-full spiritual bellies; we want Him, but not badly enough to seek with all of our hearts. We are too distracted by other things, then we wonder why God does not come through for us. After all, we "believed" him didn't we?
Jesus is the lamb, and He is precious. His flesh, he said, is our life. Just as the Israelites were commanded to eat the entire Passover lamb-leaving nothing behind, so too we are not to waste any benefits. His life, and death, were so costly. (I hate giving a costly gift only to see the person that I give it to just toss it in the trash can.) I want the gift to be cherished and enjoyed, not disregarded.
God gave us many benefits in Christ. The benefits include healing of all disease, forgiveness of sin, and deliverance from the pit. (See Psalm 103). But we have to consume the Passover lamb.
Hebrews 4:1,2
"Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the Gospel preached, as well as unto them;
but the Word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those
who heard it.”
The word must be mixed with faith, and faith also comes as we hear the word. The word “mix” is the same word used to indicate mixing food with saliva so that it can be digested. The key is to chew until the word is digested by our spirit man. When that happens, faith comes alive. Jesus said that His words bring forth life!
The word must be mixed with faith, and faith also comes as we hear the word. The word “mix” is the same word used to indicate mixing food with saliva so that it can be digested. The key is to chew until the word is digested by our spirit man. When that happens, faith comes alive. Jesus said that His words bring forth life!
Unbelief will cause us to miss the promised rest. For we have been given great and precious promises by which we become partakers of the divine nature (1 Peter 3).
Why on the Sabbath?
Jesus typically ministered on the sabbath as an illustration that His work is our rest. When the Pharisees criticized Jesus for healing on the sabbath, he said, "My father is always working, and I too am working." What a contrast! On the day when we are commanded to cease all work, Jesus is working. The sabbath day was the holiest day unto the Lord because it foreshadowed God's redemptive work in Christ in which he broke the stranglehold of the sin nature and defeated the curse! God alone gets the glory!
I hear the Lord saying to His people as He said to the Israelites in the book of Joshua, "How long with you wait to take what God has given you? Go up and take it!" Can you believe my people? Will you grieve the Lord as Jesus was grieved by his disciples unbelief?
Dare we defend our faith before God? Dare we justify ourselves? We don't have to. I lack faith, and I am not ashamed to say it because it's not about me. I lack everything for Pete's sake, and He still adores me!
Apart from Him, I have nothing. This is nothing new. Yesterdays faith will not carry me today, and I am in need of a living faith.