The Promise of Rest

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Friday, October 12, 2018

God’s promise of entering his rest still stands, so we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it.  For this good news—that God has prepared this rest—has been announced to us just as it was to them.  But it did them no good because they didn’t share the faith of those who listened to God.  For only we who believe can enter his rest. As for the others, God said, “In my anger I took an oath:  ‘They will never enter my place of rest,’” even though this rest has been ready since he made the world.  We know it is ready because of the place in the Scriptures where it mentions the seventh day:  “On the seventh day God rested from all his work.”  But in the other passage God said, “They will never enter my place of rest.”  So God’s rest is there for people to enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God.  So God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today.  God announced this through David much later in the words already quoted:  “Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts.”  Now if Joshua had succeeded in giving them this rest, God would not have spoken about another day of rest still to come.  So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God.  For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world.  So let us do our best to enter that rest.  But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall.  Hebrews 4:1-11(NLT)

Last week my bride and I were on vacation.  Well, it was really a stay-cation.  We didn’t go anywhere like Disney, or Seven Flags, or even visit the grands in Florida.  We stayed home and worked like the Hebrew slaves building Pharaoh’s pyramids.  We pulled weeds, trimmed bushes, shoveled dirt and manure, seeded, fertilized, and transplanted stuff in the dog days of late-September’s heat and humidity.  We both knew for the next several days we have never been more in need of rest for old bones!

The needs of emotional rest for the mind, and spiritual rest for the soul are just as much a reality as in the physical body.  We are created in the image of He Who rested on the seventh day.  But, because of our fallen nature, we do not readily recognize the tiredness in our soul and spirit, or the deep emotional need of rest like we feel the weakness of our weary depleted physical condition. 

But, eventually it does catch up with us.  And that is why we need to be reminded that God’s promise of rest for the weary soul still stands!

And just like a quiet place and a soft bed are a sweet invitation to regain physical being, so is the quiet place next to Father God’s heart the Good News above all else!

I love the hymn that speaks of this quiet place:

There is a place of quiet rest, near to the heart of God;

A place where sin cannot molest, near to the heart of God.

O Jesus, blest Redeemer, sent from the heart of God,

Hold us who wait before thee near to the heart of God.[2]

The caution in Hebrews, however, is that we will fail to enter that place if we try to hold on to our disobedience; when we fail to confess our sins, we put distance between us and the Savior Who is the key to that place near the heart of God.

For You Today

If you’re feeling a little weary in the soul lately, or there is trouble rustling around in your spirit, perhaps you’ve lost sight of the promise of rest; it still stands for all who will take a knee.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com

[2] Cleland B. McAfee, Near to the Heart of God, 1903m (The United Methodist Hymnal, 1989), p.472