In 2024 God has so much for you but you have to move forward into them not to gain, achieve or grab but to enter in the finished, completed work of Christ. It is called His rest.
Throughout this letter the Pastor will pause from the main subjects to bring a warning to the people. This is the second time in the letter. This time the warning passage is quite long starting in verse 7 and continuing into chapter 4 v 13.
The battle is the same in 2024 as at the time of Israel’s Wilderness years:
- Listen and obey His voice;
- Know His ways
- Watch your heart.
- Continue to move.
- Move into His rest.
“Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. 2 For we also have had the good news proclaimed to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because they did not share the faith of those who obeyed. 3 Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, “So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ And yet his works have been finished since the creation of the world. 4 For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: “On the seventh day God rested from all his works.” 5 And again in the passage above he says, “They shall never enter my rest.” (Hebrews 4 v 1-5)
I find it a little strange that the Pastor again has said ‘for somewhere he has spoken’ which even for the least experienced student of the Scriptures is obviously Genesis. Didn’t the Pastor not know the Scriptures? It can be proven that he did with so many Old Testament references within this letter. Perhaps it is simply that nothing should distract us from Christ and although David is mentioned the rest of the Old Testament authors are not.
This rest that the Wilderness generation failed to enter because of disobedience, not knowing His ways, having a hardened heart and refusing to move forward into the Promised Land was a foreshadowing of what was to come for us in Christ but also is the Genesis rest of God. This was not a tired God but a God who had completed and fulfilled everything. The Pastor is warning the people not to fall short of that rest where everything has and is being completed. What do I mean?
Because you have entered that rest and as a pilgrim continue to journey further into that rest then you can know for sure that God has your life in His hands.
There is nothing too immense or too numerous or too intense or too small or too detailed in your life that God cannot and will not bring into an order and arrangement that glorifies Him where He can say ‘it is completed, it is finished, it is good, let’s rest!’
It’s what it looks like from God’s vantage point that matters.
Enter into this relationship with Him where He is your source and everything comes from Him and is for Him and then rest. Move into that rest.
Missions Paul 