The Real Rest
‘For anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his’ (Hebrews 4:10)
There is an amazing emphasis on ‘rest’ in the New Testament. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews is trying to correct Christians who began well in their Christian faith but have now returned to Jewish legalism. Rather than trusting solely in Christ for their salvation, these Christians were adding more and more outward rules taken from the Old Testament.
We can make the same mistake today. We are saved only by our faith in Christ. We’re not saved by our faith in Christ plus our ability to keep rules, no matter how good those rules outwardly seem.
God’s order is: I’m a real Christian so it follows I will want to follow God’s ways. A wrong order is: I’ll follow God’s ways and that will make me a real Christian.
But if I rest completely in Christ, won’t that make me passive? If you really find your rest in Christ, you will soon find a new desire to follow God’s way and a new ability to fulfil God’s will. But it begins with resting in Christ.
In the Old Testament, God ‘rested’ on the 7th day. He stopped creating and just enjoyed His own handiwork. As we rest in Christ we do something similar. We stop our striving and ‘trying’ and sit back to enjoy what God’s done. There is no safer or surer place on earth than in Christ.
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